


Florentine Politics

by linman



Series: Tenebrae [14]
Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-01
Updated: 2011-01-03
Packaged: 2017-10-06 22:49:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 98,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/58592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linman/pseuds/linman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Wesley Wyndam-Pryce does a bit of traveling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Blythgate

**Florentine Politics**  
_Part I: Blythgate_  
by L. Inman

Wesley Wyndam-Pryce woke up with a start in bed, clutching his midriff. At his right ear came the tinny voice of a newsreader relinquishing his program to one of music. Wesley turned his head: the red digital numbers of the battered alarm read 8.00—a.m., he presumed, judging from the sunlight fighting its way through tatty curtains and dustmotes to fall on the discolored rug on his left.

He looked down at himself, his mind tuning out the alarm radio. The blankets and sheets covering him were clean but worn, and he seemed to be wearing a clean pair of pajamas. He drew a breath, an oddly unconstricted breath, and let his head fall back against the single pillow. Beyond anything else, the strangest thing was his feeling of freedom, of a buoyant lack of constraint: an old line occurred to him, its author escaping his mind for the moment—_my lines and life are free, free as the road, loose as the wind, as large as store—_

And then, _Must I then give back what I never stole?_

Wesley didn't try to trace these thoughts to their source. He had more pressing concerns, such as what he was doing here in the first place.

He lay for several minutes, cudgelling his brains for some sort of memory that would link him to this place, which seemed to be a boarding room of some sort. But he came up with nothing.

A strident knock came at his door, making him jump. "Come now, Mr Wyndam-Pryce. You've slept long enough. Time for breakfast!" The cheerful, commanding female voice waned at the last sentence, as if its owner were making its rounds. Sure enough, he heard another sharp knock further down the hall, and the same voice, muffled now, rousing his neighbor.

Slowly Wesley sat up, and just as slowly reached out to still the music of his alarm radio. Hanging over a rickety chair in the room were clothes he recognized as his own, brown slacks and a navy silk shirt, along with belt, socks, and shoes. On the dresser lay his wallet and glasses. On the hook on the back of the door hung his leather jacket.

As if in a dream Wesley put his legs over the bedside and stood; began to unbutton his pajama shirt with a growing curiosity as to what he'd find beneath it. The shirt off, he saw: the smooth pale flesh of his torso, pristine except for a small splash of white scar just below his ribcage. He could just scarcely call to mind what had put that scar there: a zombie cop, a whirl of ambulance lights—

_This wound is mortal—_

"Well, obviously not," Wesley said softly, looking down at himself. His brains were so sluggish; he couldn't remember what voice that was, or why he'd expected—carnage?

Shaking his head, Wesley got dressed and donned his glasses. He pocketed his wallet and shrugged into his jacket.

The hall outside his room was no more familiar than the room itself. Equally dingy, it led to a narrow flight of stairs that took Wesley to the ground floor of what was obviously a down-at-heel boardinghouse.

A woman, clearly the owner of the voice that had roused him, met him in the front hall. "Ah," she said, "there you are. Breakfast in the dining room." She pointed behind her.

"I'm not hungry," Wesley said, automatically.

"Rubbish," she said tartly. If Tyne Daly were a North English landlady, she would look like this woman, fists planted on hips.

Wesley decided not to argue. He went into the dining room, otherwise occupied by only one old doddering man, and chose a seat at a safe distance.

There were several tureens on the table with varying breakfast items in them. Wesley helped himself to some sausage and mash; and found to his surprise that he was in fact quite hungry. He ate second helpings, not minding the sound of his companion muttering into his plate, and finally pushed himself away from the table replete and for the first time, alert.

He left the old man to his muttering and went out into the front hall again, where the landlady was going through receipts at her desk. She looked up.

"So you've finished then. Did you get enough?"

"Yes, ma'am," Wesley said. "Thank you."

"Good." She beamed. "So then I suppose you'll be moving on today."

"Yes," Wesley heard himself say, "I suppose so....Do I—do I owe—"

"No, no," she said. "You're paid up. Not to worry."

"Ah," he said. He opened his mouth, but the question he wanted to ask hadn't formed itself yet.

"I expect you'll be glad to be on your way home," the landlady said, her eyes on her receipts and calculator.

"...Yes," Wesley said. Wherever _home_ was. He opened his mouth again; shut it again.

"Well, good luck to you then," she said.

She was clearly dismissing him. "Right," Wesley stammered. He turned slowly, half tripping over his own feet, and found the front door to let himself out.

He found himself on a street made all the more unfamiliar by its strangely old-fashioned lineaments. A holding hell-dimension, he thought at once, then struggled to recall why that would occur to him. He kept walking, hoping his memory would clear; but the more steps he took the more he realized that not only did he not remember where he had come from, he had no idea where he was going. He was suspended in the present.

He turned a corner and became aware of the presence of other people, bent on their errands, driving, walking the pavement, all with the secret of their purpose marked on their faces. None of them noticed him: Wesley had the dizzying thought that perhaps he didn't actually exist. In an almost convulsive movement he turned back to look at the street sign at the corner he'd just turned: Blythgate. Remember that, he told himself. If worse came to worst he'd go back to the boardinghouse and try to force a few answers out of the landlady. But he had begun to notice a difference between his feelings standing here and the remembered sense of vague content he'd felt there; if he went back, would he return to the stammering obedience that had prevented him asking questions before?

It was confusing. Wesley stared at the street sign for a while, thinking. He was standing on a weird old street in an unknown town, which looked like being in England, which he hadn't set foot in for several years now, and he'd arrived here without any memory of how, and with no particular place to be going. It was like being born, only without the mother to orient one -- except the boardinghouse lady.

There was his own mother, of course. He could visit her, since he happened to be in England. He'd have to buy a train ticket to Hampshire from -- wherever this was. He remembered his wallet and pulled it out.

The wallet contained his California driving license, a credit card he didn't recognize, a few loyalty cards from shops in Los Angeles, and enough cash in English money for a long train trip. The credit card Wesley distrusted with an instinct born of experience with corporate evil -- not that he could _remember_ the experience right now -- but the cash he could probably use without harm.

He put the wallet away and started walking again, looking for a train station. He followed several winding streets, turning wherever he found a larger one, until he reached the beginnings of a city center. As he went he realized that the city, in addition to being unfamiliar to him in his confused state, was unfamiliar by its own nature. He had, as far as he knew, never been here. He started looking in shop windows for clues to its identity, and at last he came upon a pub whose chalk easel in front declared messily, "Best Bitter in Manchester!"

"Manchester," Wesley said to himself. Then added quizzically, "What the hell?"

That visit to his mother was sounding better all the time.

*

Being on a train oddly exacerbated his discomfort at not knowing where he'd come from or where he was going. Obviously, in a literal sense he was leaving Manchester and going to Winchester. Wesley stared out the window at England going past and tried to think, but it was like using a baby's arm to lift a trunk. He had been in Los Angeles, he thought. He had been hard at work there, with Angel. But oddly he felt no urge of responsibility to head back there; it was as if he had been cut adrift from Angel's whole enterprise. But how? Wesley felt uneasily that he ought to know. But all he knew was that he was free of his obligations there. _My lines and life are free, free as the road, loose as the wind, as large as store_ \-- the words chanted themselves to him in the rhythm of the train, and after a long cogitation Wesley brought to his memory that they had been written by George Herbert. Well, that was no help. He wasn't headed to Little Gidding, after all.

Not that he couldn't, if he wanted to. He had some books in storage near Cambridge. He hadn't needed them for a while, but the time to use them may well be at hand.

The day lengthened, and Wesley navigated the delays at the change of trains, remembering but not feeling the anxiety he'd felt doing so when he had first gone off to school; how to do things had always preoccupied him, how to do them and not look like a prat in the process. It didn't seem to matter now, and this was as troubling as anything else on Wesley's mind. He took his place in the crush of people going their own ways, and it seemed to him that there were memories also crushing against the vestibule of his consciousness, and the barrier could come down any time.

It was too much to hope that the missing memories would be good ones.

At last he was nearing home: Winchester, the ancient seat of his family, who'd been Watchers time out of mind. There was the estate in the nearby country, but there was also the little house in town, and Wesley would go there first. If Holton opened the door he would soon know what to expect.

The tide of his travel deposited him in the long vesper light of summer at the stone steps to his family home, familiar as his own hand, down to the weathered chip on the penultimate step that had been there longer than he'd been alive. How many times had he reached this point and felt the troubled safety draw him in? A childhood memory came to him, of a late afternoon with the muted light slanting in an upper window where he sat alone with a book, the motes in the air buoyant with unnameable loss, himself saturated with the sense of it. It was not a pleasant feeling but it was familiar, a feeling one kept in one's own possession, insubstantial and therefore safe from the tangible scrutiny of paternal disappointment.

_I don't have to be here_, Wesley thought suddenly. _Nothing says I have to come back here._

But he did need to find out what he could, and this was the likeliest place to start. Unless they didn't recognize him, and he really didn't exist here. Suppose he was in the wrong dimension? Would there be a chip in the penultimate step if this were a dimension in which he didn't exist?

Well, that would be knowledge of a sort. Wesley stepped forward against his own hesitation and rang the bell.

It wasn't Holton who opened the door. It was his mother. "If it hasn't come," she was calling upstairs, "I'll go out for it myself -- " and then she saw him. Her eyes went round, and she went such a grey that Wesley's hand twitched in an impulse to reach out and steady her. Her lips formed his name; he drew breath to speak, wondering what he was going to say.

He didn't get the chance. She suddenly dropped the basket she was holding and let out a piercing shriek.

Well, Wesley thought, so much for not being recognized.

*

"Roger!" his mother shouted when she recovered from the shriek. And then of course Roger was there, behind her shoulder, with a small crossbow at the ready. When he saw Wesley his back went ramrod straight.

"What do you want here?" he demanded.

This was a bit of a facer. What _did_ Wesley want here? He wished he wasn't having so much trouble thinking. More than usual in his father's presence, anyway.

His mother was clutching the doorjamb, keeping by instinct out of the way of Roger's crossbow, which was still pointed directly his way. They were afraid. Why were they --

"They said you were dead," she said, with an ache of despair in her voice that Wesley knew all too well. She reached for him, and before he knew what he was doing he stepped back, out of range of her touch. Her fingers grasped on empty air, but it seemed as though they had got hold of thoughts and pulled them like endless silk scarves from his mind, silent and horrible.

Illyria. Illyria, and her desecration of Fred's face and voice. Angel pulling down Wolfram &amp; Hart over all their heads. Spike, and Lindsey McDonald, and the way his knife felt in Gunn's stomach. Lilah, serving in perpetuity, and Justine, forced to help him find Angel, and Connor. Connor, who was the key to everything that no one understood, and no one remembered him, because of Vail.

Vail, who had killed him.

Another figure joined his parents in the doorway, with the authoritative step of a Watcher which Wesley would have recognized even without knowing who he was: Michael Robson. But Wesley could hardly even see him for the flood of images that had been loosed to his mind's eye, disorienting by their mere number. In a moment he was going to faint, which was a typical, typical ignominy. He firmed his feet on the doorstep of what had once been his home and held on.

"Wesley -- " His mother made another move to reach for him, but his father stopped her. "Well?" he said to Wesley.

Robson looked as consternated as the others, but he said calmly, "If you're not dead, tell us what has happened."

Wesley had never been able to comprehend Robson's style of peremptory kindness at the best of times, and now it didn't even compute. But he had to respond somehow.

"I came -- I came to --" He had come to find out exactly what he had just found out. He was dead.

His father tossed his head with that little smile that ought to have been good-natured and never was. "Well, spit it out, for heaven's sake. Don't just stand there looking vacant --" which latter command Wesley had heard many times before, in moments when his internal processes had failed to catch up with whatever was being said to him. Indecisive, that was the word his father liked to use of him. Irresolute. Wanting in conviction.

Wesley knew he ought to be standing his ground. He ought to stand his ground and let them take hold of him, draw him inside, ask him questions. He could bear the questions easily; he didn't have any answers, but at least he didn't have any answers it would be fatal to give. He ought to be standing his ground. He had every reason to stand his ground.

But his feet were moving backward: one step, and then another stumbling step, and so backward down to the street, where he turned as if by compulsion and walked swiftly away. His long strides ate up the block; he expected every moment to be hit with his father's crossbow quarrel, and every moment he was not. Neither did they come after him. Wesley turned the first corner, into the long shadows of the evening cast by the rows of buildings on either hand, and the fear hit him then, like the rain behind the wind, and he ran.

*

The last of his cash took him to London and a pub, where he bought two brandies, the first one of which he never tasted as it went down. He was out of cash after that, and was sorry, because the second brandy didn't seem to be touching the shaking deep inside him any more than the first one did. He huddled in a shadowy corner of the pub, clutching his glass and fighting the temptation to succumb to entropy.

Well, there; he had wondered why he felt no need to go back to Angel. For all he knew, Angel was as dead as he was supposed to be. For all he knew, Los Angeles was now a smoking ruin, though it probably wasn't. For all he knew -- but anything could be true. He was supposed to be dead. Free, free as the road, loose as the wind --

It was now imperative to question the landlady at the boardinghouse in Manchester. It was the only thread he could think of to grasp. But it was too late to get a train back there tonight, and anyway he was out of cash.

He pulled out his wallet and lifted the credit card free of its pocket, turning it over once and again. It was unsigned on the back; it had a number on the front but no name. It looked suspiciously like a credit card to a Wolfram &amp; Hart account; if it was, God only knew where the money came from. Nowhere good. However, he himself had never used such a card; he had been high enough on the totem pole that doors opened themselves for him and money changed hands without his having to lift a finger. If Wolfram &amp; Hart was responsible for his resurrection, why give him a credit card?

This was the point at which, presumably, Lilah would slide into the seat across the table and explain the whole thing to him. He looked up expectantly. But she didn't. The denizens of the pub continued placidly with their conversations. The whole world was going on about its business without him, which is what it was supposed to do after one had died.

_Whoever is responsible for this_, Wesley thought, _just put them in front of me and give me a gun._

Wesley got up and left the pub. Outside the lights of London were bright and the world a-chatter with idle celebration. He found a small inn and went in to order a room for the night.

The girl at the desk swiped his credit card -- it seemed to work all right -- and handed it back to him, then pointed out the electronic pad for him to sign the virtual sales draft. Wesley took the lightpen in hand to make the flowing signature of which he was secretly rather vain...and experienced a sudden horrible qualm, as if reeling back from a precipice over blackness.

He couldn't help the sensation that he was about to cement more than a payment agreement with his signature. At the very least, the entity who had brought him back would know where he was; and more than that, Wesley would be indebted to him -- her -- it when he was finally found. And Wesley was not too naive to suppose that they would give him the gun and the opportunity he desired.

"I'm sorry -- " he stuttered to the girl as he dropped the lightpen. "I -- forgot -- I need to -- " For the second time that day he stumbled backward, then turned and walked swiftly away. Out the door and up the street.

And kept walking.

*

The morning found Wesley blowing lightly at the steam from a paper cup of coffee bought with the last bit of change in his pocket. He had walked all night, until the first tube stations opened, and taken the earliest opportunity to hit a vending machine and find an unobtrusive seat on a bench.

During the night hours he had reached, if not clarity, at least a plan for the next twenty-four hours. The first thing he needed was a little ready cash. There was some in a safety-deposit box he maintained in a London bank, along with a passport in an alternate name, and a few other things a field Watcher kept against a time of need. Trying to access the box was a risk, as he didn't know whether the Council would be keeping an eye out for him. They probably would; it had been a foolhardy thing, going to his parents' house (Wesley scarcely noticed he had ceased to call it "home" even in thought), but under the circumstances he wasn't sure what else he could have done.

It was a ridiculous position, really: here he was, walking the streets of London with nowhere to go and no eye resting upon him with any interest, and yet he felt horribly exposed, like a black fly on a white wall. Well, he thought with mirthless whimsy, if you're a fly and you don't want to be swatted, you just don't land anywhere for very long.

*

The bank accepted the story he told them of being on a flying visit from the States, bolstered by a show of his California ID (and a quiet spell spoken before he walked in -- all that study of the Wolfram &amp; Hart archives was paying off). They opened his box for him, and he calmly emptied it of most of its contents. The lovely thing about safety deposit boxes was that unless one mentioned them in one's will, no one else knew about them. He took his property and walked away firmly, disdaining surveillance.

He bought a train ticket to Manchester. He had considered going to Cambridge first, as it was closer; but rationally speaking it was better not to take a predictable route, and he was well associated in the Council's mind with Cambridge. They might even know about his books in storage, though he had shared that secret with nobody. Watchers were a bit like squirrels with their books; it was, as the children's story had it, rude to be overtly curious about the location of another Watcher's stash. The contents, however, were fair game for all the curiosity any Watcher could muster. And when the books he was about to sell hit the market, there would be curiosity.

Non-rationally speaking, of course, Wesley wanted to get hold of that landlady as soon as possible.

Still, when he reached Manchester his first move was to find a hotel and book a night's room. Whatever he found out from the landlady, he wasn't going to spend a second night in that boardinghouse (if indeed he had spent a first one there), and he was going to be in desperate need of sleep very soon. With a room key in his pocket, he then went out and hailed a cab.

"Take me to Blythgate," he said to the driver, and sat back to secure the room key in his wallet. He hadn't looked at the number of the boardinghouse, but he didn't remember Blythgate as a very long street; it wouldn't be difficult for him to cruise it till he saw the right place.

Slightly fuddled from lack of sleep, he was a moment noticing that the driver hadn't moved to put the car in gear. Wesley looked up, and the driver said, "Say again?"

"Blythgate," Wesley said. "The street. It shouldn't be too far from here."

"Ain't no such street," the driver said.

"Don't be ridiculous," Wesley said. "I've been there myself. It's east of the city center and several streets north."

The driver raised one meaty eyebrow, and Wesley wished he'd chosen his words more carefully. But he must have looked sufficiently at a loss, because the driver picked up his comm and called in to his center. "D'you know of a street called Blythgate? East and north of the city center." He asked Wesley for the spelling and repeated it in.

It was a long moment before the answer came back. "Sorry, no such street in the listings."

"I see," Wesley said numbly.

"I could -- "

"No," Wesley said. "Never mind." He opened the cab door and handed the driver a pound note. "Thanks."

*

He found his way to the Manchester Central Library and buried himself in the local history section. After an hour of patient search, he found that the cab driver was right: there was no such street. But there had been; Blythgate had been a small connecting street in the area Wesley remembered, until the Christmas Blitz, when its houses and structure had been damaged beyond repair. The city had razed the street and rezoned the area; what was there now was a series of industrial parks. The place where he had waked up was probably in the middle of a warehouse, or a parking lot.

Buoyantly calm, Wesley left the library and went back to his hotel. He took off his clothes, turned on the shower as hot as he could stand and stood under it for a long time without moving. After a while he stirred himself to wash; then blindly he got out and dried himself. Stumbled naked to the neatly-made hotel bed and crawled in.

He slept like the dead, and the nightmares didn't even start till morning.

*

Right, so he'd been disjected back into the world after his death -- how long after his death? -- time to look at the news -- through the vestibule of a street that no longer existed, with just enough resources to sustain his first hours there, and an uncertain means of getting more resources that probably beaconed him back to whoever had done it. Wesley would be damned (probably literally) if he played the game exactly as it was laid out. He dearly hoped it hadn't been laid out by Vail, who would be holding all the cards except one -- that damned credit card. Wesley needed a backroad plan.

So first to Cambridge. Then to someone who had resources in either lore or underground news who could sell or give him the information he needed. Probably a Watcher. A Watcher under cover. A Watcher not in England. There were a lot of those now; the First Evil had exterminated a large portion of the Council and the field Watchers directly associated with Potentials, and the rest had gone into deep cover. This could work to Wesley's advantage; otherwise the Council would have alerted all of Watcherdom at once that Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, who was supposed to be dead, was walking the earth and looking for information.

But it didn't mean he had time to waste finding it out.

When he arrived in Cambridge he stopped for a cup of tea and a newspaper and carefully observed his surroundings. He didn't see any Watchers making sweeps looking for him, but it didn't mean they weren't there. Casting another glamour over himself wouldn't go amiss.

It had been more than a month since his death. No wonder his parents had got the word. Los Angeles, as he suspected, was still intact, though there was a small headline about the recovery from the oddly localized earthquake damage in the central part of the city.

So the Apocalypse, as Lindsey had said, was still going on. Though technically it wasn't. The word's actual meaning referred to a revelation, a lifting of the curtain to people who knew how or when to look. The curtains, as far as Wesley could see, were all down again.

Especially in his case. He sighed, and got up to go and plunder his books.

*

He returned to London with a canvas bag heavy with valuable tomes, and called at the home office of a dealer he knew of. Banning Edwards was a civilian, but he had an uncanny sense of the proper price for any book, whether occult or mundane. He was getting too old to search out books himself, but had established enough of a reputation that people now brought books to him, and he could see down any number of twisting avenues of gossip.

Edwards received him now with gentle ceremony and looked over the items Wesley showed him. "Oh, these are very nice specimens, Mr...Blake, did you say? Yes. They've been kept in a climate-controlled environment, I see. Yes, very nice. I know one or two people who would be very pleased to have a look at them. Yes, very pleased indeed."

After about ten minutes of benevolent haggling, Edwards took out his checkbook. Wesley decided now was the time to feel for information.

"Have you had any dealing with Zachary Dennison lately?" he asked. "I keep meaning to look him up again."

Edwards looked up at him mildly, his fountain pen never pausing. He was clearly nobody's fool; he knew Wesley's question wasn't casual. But his reputation for never asking the unnecessary question was good.

"Dennison...ah yes. St. Petersburg. Yes, I consulted him about a book on Rasputin a few months ago. Poor soul." This was the sort of thing most people said about Dennison, whose status as an object of pity would be complete were it not for his encyclopedic knowledge and eidetic memory.

"Well, that's nice," Wesley said, taking his check and folding it away. "Thank you for your business."

"I look forward to seeing more books from you, Mr Blake. Say hello to Dennison for me."

Wesley grinned suddenly. "I will."

*

A few days later, Wesley arrived in St. Petersburg carrying only a satchel with a change of clothing and a toiletry kit. It had taken a little time to establish a full identity for Weston Blake, but it was worth the ease in air travel. He looked forward to meeting Dennison with some trepidation: he had spoken with him once on the telephone, but not in person. He would be lucky to get him to allow an interview at all.

After some trouble, he located the dingy flat-block in a wet back street and pressed the button on the intercom panel labeled with the Russian form of Dennison's name in painfully exact Cyrillic script. "What do you want?" snapped the voice who answered, in Russian.

"Mr Dennison," Wesley said, "I need to speak with you. I'm -- "

Dennison cut him off, still in Russian. "What do you want?"

Had he not understood Wesley's English? or had he disregarded it? Wesley decided not to try to draw on his own scanty Russian. "Mr Dennison, I need to speak with you. My name is --" the alias would waste both their time -- "Wesley Wyndam-Pryce."

"Fuck off, dead man!" came the reply, in English.

"I'm not dead," Wesley said, trying to be patient.

"Bullshit!" said Dennison. "Authority too good."

"Whose?" Wesley couldn't quite mask the note of desperation in his voice.

"Never guess," he snarled, "never guess. Not talking to a dead man. Go away."

"No," Wesley said, "I'm _not_ going away. I need to speak with you."

There was silence on the other end, and after several long seconds Wesley decided that was the end of the interview.

But then a door opened in the damp corridor, only a few inches, and a wild pale eye fixed itself on Wesley's face. After a second in which Wesley felt himself scanned from head to toe -- and despite the risk it was somewhat of a relief to be looked at with interest in his own name -- the door opened a little further and Dennison jerked his head to summon him inside.

He followed Dennison up a narrow staircase made even narrower by stacks and piles of newsprint, parchment, and periodicals of all kinds, and found himself in a tiny flat that was even more cluttered and dirty than its outside suggested. It was an unsavory nest of papers and books, which Dennison wouldn't even need if his reputation were true, and when Dennison, muttering, ushered him to a chair at a rickety table, Wesley resisted the temptation to wipe at the seat before taking it.

Dennison himself, though English and American by birth, looked like something out of a Russian novel, which made Wesley wonder if he'd chosen to settle in St. Petersburg on purpose. He wore a raveling jumper which had probably once been yellow, his uncut black hair was inadequately washed and brushed, and he had a lazy eye that was weirdly even more direct than his straight one. "Dead man," he said to Wesley.

"Well, apparently not now," Wesley said, watching Dennison put on a battered kettle for tea.

"Dead man, dead man. Why can't people stay dead in this day and age?" He gave Wesley a canny glance that might have passed for the glimmer of a sense of humor, though Wesley only suspected it because he had read several of Dennison's monographs, which were masterpieces of fluent and civilized discourse. Had he been as skilled in personal communication, he'd have been a celebrated speaker in Watcher circles. As it was, he was highly sought after for interviews of the kind Wesley found himself in, and people considered themselves lucky if Dennison answered their letters. Best of all, he never betrayed a confidence, though he often refused to receive confidences. Wesley could see why.

"I need information," Wesley said. "Since I'm here."

"Bullshit," Dennison said again. "Look east. Look east, look east. Like the watchman and the magus. Gold, frankincense, and myrrh." He poured water from the steaming kettle into a chipped blue teapot.

"I should be looking east?" Wesley said, patiently.

"Look east. But not before you fuck a bunch of things up. Dead man. Where's your blue nightmare?"

Wesley submerged his startlement and accepted the cup of tea Dennison gave him. "I haven't seen Illyria since the battle." Gingerly he took a sip of the tea and found it delicious.

"Nor will you. The watchman and the magus are your guides. Maga," he corrected himself, planting himself against a food-crusted tin-faced counter.

Wesley couldn't help it. He put down his tea and glared at the man. "Never."

Dennison shrugged. "Then you're fucked. As usual."

"Coming back here wasn't my idea," Wesley said, and to his own horror he heard emotion unraveling in his own voice, like Dennison's jumper.

"Wasn't anybody's idea," Dennison said. There was an obscure comfort in the fact that Dennison could read his emotion without either responding to it in pity or disdaining it as weakness.

"How do you know about it?" This was one thing Wesley could not leave here without knowing.

Dennison waved a dismissive hand. "Watchers, Watchers, Watchers. Peddling, peddling. The city of angels fucked you."

"I'll say," Wesley muttered. He sought refuge in another sip of tea.

"You don't have much time." It sounded ominous coming from Dennison: but then, everything did.

"I need to know how it happened." Wesley swallowed. "Did it...did it have something to do with Vail?"

Instead of answering, Dennison took a long sip of his own tea and stared out the tiny smeared kitchen window. His half-bared arm showed an old tattoo, like a sailor's, and Wesley wondered what he'd been like before the blows to his sanity, many years ago now. The stories had been legend at the Watcher's Academy.

"Many Slayers now," Dennison said finally, pursing his mouth after a drink of tea. "Many Slayers. Dreaming. Sharing the load. Not good at sharing. Watchers and Slayers. Ancient and new."

"I'll go anywhere but to Buffy," Wesley said.

Again Dennison shrugged. "Then you'll go anywhere."

Wesley sighed wearily. "Thank you."

"Young dead man."

"Not so young anymore," Wesley said ruefully.

"Young dead crazy man."

Wesley was near the bottom of his tea. As he watched, Dennison put down his cup and began to rummage in first one pile of garbage and then another. He seemed to find one item of interest in a wad of half-crumpled notes, and carried it with him to ruffle his hand over a pile of monographs. He worked one out from the center and sheafed it awkwardly in one hand as he returned to Wesley.

He plucked Wesley's tea out of his hand before he could drain the last sip and handed him first the wad of notes. Wesley smoothed the creases with his fingers and read over the first page. Names and places, in different inks, in different languages. The names were all female.

"Read," Dennison snarled at him. "Memorize. Destroy."

Wesley nodded. "Thank you."

Then the relatively unscathed monograph. "For your enjoyment and edification," Dennison said. It was definitely a twinkle in his eye now, and for a moment he even looked like the Watcher he had been. Wesley shut his teeth against the return of emotion.

"Thank you," he murmured again, blinking fast.

"Now go away," Dennison said.

*

At the airport Wesley studied the list of names -- read, memorize, destroy -- and tried to think where next he wanted to go. If he had interpreted Dennison right, Slayers were a key to what he wanted. Perhaps their prophetic abilities had found an access point to images or knowledge of his return. Or maybe Dennison just wanted someone on which to palm off his knowledge of Slayer locations. What was he supposed to do with it, besides reading, memorizing, and destroying?

There was supposedly a Slayer in Istanbul. Wesley could easily go there. Or wait, there was a name associated with Cairo...and a Watcher's name as well. Wesley suddenly realized what he was looking at: Dennison's collection of references to Slayers found by Watchers in the last year. Buffy Summers probably knew about some of these, but not all. This was a very valuable list. Worth a lot of book sales and plane trips. Worth, too, his newly-restored life. Wesley didn't care about that so much -- he remembered a distinct school's-out feeling on dying, and wouldn't mind having that feeling again -- but if he was here he was surely here for some useful reason, and knowing what it was would help him either to do it or refuse it. This looked to be a good thread to pull.

Thoughtfully Wesley folded away the list of names in his breast pocket and took up the monograph. It was one of Dennison's own, written five years ago about the religious history of Malta and the tradition of the Maltese Oracles, a tiny clan of women devoted to prayer who had been gifted with clear sight across certain meridians of time. The subject for its own sake was engaging, and Wesley read the article through to the end. It was at the end that he was rewarded: Dennison had interviewed one of the younger Oracles and mentioned her by a single name. But that single name rang a bell.

Wesley pulled out the list again. Yes, there it was. Melita (surely a religious name) Saidon, Gozo. No Watchers' names. Perhaps Dennison had found this one himself. But if Wesley was going to do this at all, he was going to have to risk meeting Watchers who might be less generous than Dennison -- who certainly would be if they knew how much Dennison had given him. The thought gave Wesley a grim pleasure.

Wesley got up from his seat and went to arrange himself a trip to Malta.

*

As it turned out, Wesley had to fly through Istanbul to get to Malta, but he didn't stop. As Dennison had asked, he had read, memorized, and destroyed the list of Slayers on the plane to Istanbul, then slept fitfully the rest of the flight.

He had prepared himself for bad news, for attack, for discovery by his ghosts, for all sorts of things he had learned to be prepared for; but there was one thing he'd forgotten.

He hadn't adequately prepared himself for the fact that Malta was beautiful.

The Oracles' enclosure was, sure enough, on Gozo, along a cliffside path that one would have to be a mountain goat to have cut in the first place, and as he picked his way along it under the bright summer sun, with the stiff breeze bending grasses to tickle at his trouser cuffs, he gradually awoke to what he was seeing and hearing and smelling.

There was a world of blue sky over his head, endless and achingly luminous. Where it met the sea at the horizon, it shaded up into the delicate color of the inside of a songbird's egg. The sea, too, was luminous in its way, catching and holding light in its depths, releasing it at the margins, whispering restlessly to everyone and no one; and Wesley couldn't stop himself taking a deep lungful of the air and savoring it.

He was suddenly aware that his feet had stopped on the path just short of the brow of a hill, and that the tears on his face were not just from the wind, and that he had been gripped by a suffocating fright so complete that he couldn't even flee in the privacy of his mind. There was nowhere to flee to.

"No," he whispered, "no -- "

There was nowhere to flee to. He swiped at his face, grieving he knew not what, and forced himself to continue up the hill. He was back in the world, back to being who he was, Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, who could never go home again, who had received kindness from a madman who could so easily have been himself -- fucked by the city of angels, indeed -- who ought to be dead and wasn't. School was back in. _My lines and life are free, free as the road, loose as the wind, as large as store_ \-- Wesley suddenly remembered how that poem ended, and laughed bitterly.

He crested the hill and looked down. At the bottom was tucked the pale-stone abbey and enclosure with its squat square belltower; a long staircase cut into the rock led down to the sweeping sea; and ten yards away a near-grown young woman was gathering grasses into a basket, her faded grey habit whickering in the stiff breeze. She looked up at him and wiped a strand of dark hair from her face.

"What are you doing here?" she said, in English.

Wesley was getting tired of that question. "You tell me," he said.

She shook her head. "I thought you would figure out you didn't need to come here."

"What?" Wesley stared at her, then down at the compound, half-expecting to see enemies come pouring like ants out of the doorways.

"I saw you in London," she said simply, and he turned his eyes back to her.

"You're Ms Saidon," Wesley said, his wits catching up with the situation.

"Sister Melita," she said, with a small, graceful dip toward the earth.

"Sister Melita," he repeated. "Did you see me in Manchester?"

She shook her head. "I can't help you with that. I saw you in London, trying to figure out what to do. I think," she added, "you've had some additional advice since."

He merely gave her a level look.

"Advice which you didn't like. Well, I haven't anything else for you."

Wesley was very nearly on the verge of losing his temper. She was right, of course: she was an Oracle as well as a Slayer, and appeared to have all the cheek of both, and he had tramped out to the middle of the Mediterranean to solicit her useless advice.

"Can you at least," he said with withering asperity, "give me any clue as to why this is happening?"

"There is no 'why,'" she said. "There's only 'what.'"

"People aren't resurrected by a random accident," Wesley almost shouted. "I was dead. I was done. Now I'm back here. I want to know how it happened."

"You are curious?" she said, cocking her head to one side so that the covering on her hair gave a flap in the wind against her shoulder.

"_Curious?_" Wesley's hands clenched; he unclenched them with an effort. "I'm trying to avoid falling into a trap."

"Nonsense," she said, rearranging the grasses in her basket. "You spring as many traps as you fall into. You need to start looking at the 'what' of things. Maybe you should pay a visit to your former colleague. He's in Oxford now, you know. In the meantime, come down to the guest house and have something to eat."

"I am not," he said, "going to throw in my lot with Buffy Summers. For the last time!"

She gave him a long tranquil look. "Still, you should go and see your former colleague. It would be to your advantage."

"Why," Wesley said bitterly, "is my destiny so bound up with Giles-who-is-in-Oxford-now?"

"No," she said.

"Then perhaps you could tell me something about what my destiny _is_ bound up with." Wesley hadn't let go with quite so much sarcasm in a long time, and it felt good, in a melancholy sort of way.

She smiled gently, and the wind played with her habit.

"You don't have one," she said.

*


	2. Iffley Road

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which curiosity doesn't exactly kill the cat.

There was no answer at the door.

Wesley checked the address on his slip of paper and plied the knocker again.

The third time he knocked, he heard a voice—but coming from outside.

"You'll not find them there this time of week."

He glanced down and to the left. An older woman was sweeping out the area below the steps. His expression must have served as sufficient inquiry, for she elaborated: "They'll be at the house. Not the flat. It's not term time, you see."

Wesley glanced at his slip of paper again. "I've got two Oxford addresses here."

"That's right," the woman said, with unsmiling cheer. "Pyke's Lea. That's the house. You'll find them there."

"Do you know how to get there?" Wesley asked mildly, checking off the Bath address and the Oxford flat as non-starters and slipping the bit of pencil back into his pocket.

"Never been, have I?" She put an indignant fist on her hip, but then gave him a canny half-grin. "But I know where it is."

Wesley smiled thinly. _Not getting out of it so easily, are we?_

"Thank you," he said.

*

Having made only one wrong turn out of Headington, Wesley pulled cautiously into the lane next the mailbox lettered neatly with the name of Rupert Giles's home, feeling rather as if he were about to beard the proverbial lion in its den. Annoyed, he shunted aside the trepidation in his pulses and reminded himself firmly: he was here to propose a business arrangement. It was Giles who needed him, not the other way about. And if he wasn't satisfied with the way he was served, then he'd get out of it and be on his way.

The trouble was, he wasn't sure which eventuality he was hoping for. Perhaps, he thought, with a mental glare at Sister Melita, he should just continue to think of this as an exercise in curiosity.

Two cars in the drive, parked at the side of the house; a pile of debris at the fence along with some sun-scarring on the house suggested that a car canopy had been recently dismantled. Both vehicles were modest, one (he noted as he got out of his rental) a bit cluttered with papers in the backseat. The English summer was progressing to full height, and the grass was tall in the orchard; it had been tamed nearer the house itself. As he approached the porch, he noticed that the paint on the trim had not been renewed in some time, but two scrapers and a wire brush lay abandoned on the flagstones near the wall. A refurbishing project, then, this house. Wesley tried to imagine Giles in DIY garb, but failed utterly: all he could conjure was crisp linen, silk-back waistcoat, neat tie, glinting gold wire-rims. The man could, he recalled grudgingly, wear a suit; he had managed to exude an enviable air of clement competence without ever trying too hard.

Wesley didn't suppose that Giles had remained immutable when he himself had changed so much. But perhaps Giles was about to get more of a surprise than he was.

He stepped up to the broad oak door and rang the bell smartly.

The thread of a voice reached his ears, and then soft male footsteps; and the door opened.

"You're not the deliveryman," Giles said blankly.

He was barefoot—of all things—and was wearing heavily frayed and faded jeans topped by a charcoal knit jumper with white paint smudged on one sleeve. He was not wearing glasses, and his tousled hair was more liberally brushed with grey than Wesley remembered.

But the dignity was the same.

Now that it came to the point Wesley found he was able to remain perfectly still. He cleared his throat quietly and said, "Hullo, Giles," in a perfectly satisfactory tone, with no tremor at all.

"Wesley." Giles inclined his head briefly, his pale hazel eyes making one incisive sweep of the man on his doorstep. After a moment his mouth twitched into a near-smile and he stood aside silently to let Wesley enter.

After a mirroring hesitation, Wesley stepped across the threshold.

He was loath to allow the man to remain behind him as he entered the house, but found he could not refuse the invitation of Giles's silent outstretched hand to precede him down the front lobby. But he was not attacked from behind, and within a few moments Giles moved past him to open a door ahead and usher him inside.

There was the smell of fresh paint somewhere, but it was not coming from this room, which looked more completely refurbished than the rooms he'd glimpsed from the hall: a large, high-ceilinged study replete with books. The wide boards beneath the Turkish rug were recently varnished, and a stepladder stood on a dropcloth in the corner gathering dust. Wesley saw why: the frescoes on the ceiling were going to be the devil to restore, judging from the paltry beginnings in the corner above the ladder.

Giles moved past him once more to take his place behind a desk piled high with varying stacks of papers and files. "Do have a seat," Giles said, though he did not sit himself.

Wesley caught himself before he could move automatically to the leather chair Giles had indicated. "I may not stay long," he said coldly. He saw then that Giles's hand lay nonchalantly on the surface of the desk before him, as if ready to move lightning-fast to a side drawer. His feelings vacillated irritatingly between satisfaction that Giles was taking him seriously enough to consider him a threat, and disappointment that he had not managed to shock Giles with his dangerous competence. "I came to make a business proposition," he said, "if you are amenable."

"Indeed," Giles said, cocking his head slightly.

Wesley was not sure whether the other man's tone was meant to be condescending; he tried to ignore it, but the old hauteur crept into his stance nonetheless. "Yes," he said. "I've been making plans for my next move, and I came to see whether it'd be worth our coordinating our next steps."

"Your services are on offer to us?" Giles raised one eyebrow. "You have not preferred to inquire among the remains of the Council?"

If he kept perfectly still his discomfort would not show. "I went first to my father's house, yes," Wesley said grudgingly, and then decided to add the simple truth. "They do not trust me."

"I expect not," Giles said quietly, "considering the recent additions to your CV. You're the only one of Angel's people," he added casually, "to be confirmed alive."

A slight smile tugged at Wesley's mouth. Damned if he'd give up that information so easily.

"And why," Giles continued, "should you suppose that we would trust you?"

"I don't need you to trust me," Wesley said, deciding that bluntness was the best course after all. "But if you distrust me it'd better be for the correct reasons."

"Ah," Giles said, his head going back in a familiar gesture of understanding. "And you think we are more likely to distrust you for the correct reasons."

Wesley shrugged. "I plan to carry out my agenda regardless of what anyone thinks. But there's no reason not to share with you the information I gather, for a reasonable retainer. If things can be arranged to my satisfaction, that is."

It was a small smile on the man's lips now. "Well, well," he said. "Junior's cut the leash."

Without motion, a moment of danger passed between the two men: an acid rage in Wesley's insides, a palpable awareness of the weapon in Giles's drawer; and then a calm silence.

"Indeed," Wesley said, his tone unconcerned. "Now that my previous obligations are ended, I am free to pursue my ends in whatever manner suits me most. The board," he could not resist adding, "has been cleared for a new game."

"I should certainly agree," Giles added mildly. "Though the losses incurred by such a clearing—"

"Do not dare to offer your condolences." It was pleasing to get in at least one contemptuous jab, though Wesley feared he might have invited other emotions into the mix as well. But before Giles could reply or he recover, a new voice broke the silence, trailing toward the door.

"Rupert, tea is ready. Did the package come? —Oh."

Wesley turned. Leaning into the doorway was a young woman. She wore dark-rimmed glasses over hazel eyes slightly bluer than Giles's, and her brown hair was knotted untidily at the back. He had been aware that Giles had a companion, but two things about the woman caught him completely unprepared.

The first was that she was heavily pregnant.

The second was that she was staring at him not merely in shock, but recognition.

"Good God!" she said. "It's Wesley."

*

"Wesley," Giles said dryly, "may I introduce my wife, Elisabeth Bowen."

There was a small silence while Wesley ransacked his brains for some reason for the woman to know him. Had the disintegration of Vail's spell been incomplete? Or --

"Pleasure," she said, smiling; and he would have dismissed the fancy that she was worried behind the smile, if she had not then turned her glance quickly to Giles's face.

"The package did _not_ come," Giles said. "And I've a few things to finish up here. You can start without me, if you wish."

Whatever understanding passed between them, it was so instant that Elisabeth scarcely paused before turning back to him with an amused smile. "Perhaps you'd like to take tea with us," she said. "The kitchen's this way -- no, don't look at him, he's only liable to be rude -- I can show you the way, if you'd like."

Unable to think of a reason for refusing, Wesley turned his back on Giles and followed Elisabeth's gesture. On the way to the door, he tripped and nearly fell over a ruck in the carpet. So much for commensurate dignity.

"It's high time we got that fixed," she said. "Rupert and I are constantly tripping on it ourselves. This way."

Either she was being kind, Wesley reflected, or she was remarkably cavalier about tripping on things in her condition. He followed her in silence across the hall; it seemed to him by the set of her petite shoulders that she didn't like being followed any more than he did, but she said nothing, and her face as she showed him into a ramshackle kitchen was impassive.

The kitchen may have been cluttered and half-finished, but the tea table was a thing of beauty. There was a liturgical precision to the placement of teapot and serving-dishes between the two place-settings that could only have been the work of an American.

"You take Rupert's place," she told him, indicating the nearer setting. "He'll get his own when he comes."

Wesley realized suddenly that he was in fact quite hungry. He sat down and reached for the teapot. "Shall I be mum?" he inquired, belatedly.

"Oh, help yourself," she said, easing down into her chair. "My tea's herbal these days. Quiche?"

"Please."

She served him a largish slice from a piping-hot dish. "We have like fifty billion of these in the freezer. Andrew made extra for the wedding, and we've been trying to get rid of it. So _mangia, mangia_." She gestured with her own fork. Wesley almost smiled before he remembered that even a tea table could not disarm the situation between him and Giles's family. Perhaps in the other room Giles was calling in reinforcements right now. His best plan was to beat a hasty retreat. But he had already done that twice, and even as he wished he hadn't taken the Oracle's advice, he was already cutting a bite with his fork and blowing on it.

"So...I -- er -- sorry, I've forgotten your name --"

"Elisabeth."

"So," he asked hesitantly, " -- should I know you?"

"Nope," she said, pinching her herbal teabag and dropping it on her plate. "You don't know me from Adam."

"Then...how...?"

She blew out her cheeks. "The short version?" She stabbed a quick bite of quiche. "Short version is, I'm not from this dimension. I hail from a dimension where Buffy and Angel are the main characters of two TV shows. I watched _Buffy_ pretty religiously, up till the end of the series when the Sunnydale Hellmouth was closed; I only saw the opener of the next season of _Angel_ before I crossed dimensions. I was traveling a lot at the time, you see. So the furthest I got was when Spike showed up at Wolfram &amp; Hart."

Having reeled off this information, she looked up to gauge his reaction, but Wesley, still processing, didn't have much reaction to give. This might, he thought, or might not have something to do with Vail, but it didn't sound like it had much to do with him. Elisabeth, evidently satisfied that he was neither catatonic nor chaotic, continued.

"An injury in an earthquake sent my astral self here, and almost three years backward, God only knows why. I didn't know what had happened till I wandered into Rupert's magic shop. They had to do a binding spell to reunite my selves, but I died in the portal and the PTB kicked me back here alive. Then Rupert sent me here to start over. Which I did, after a fashion. I read English lit at Magdalen, and do some bookscouting on the side."

The faint hip-shift of diphthongs in her tone was Midwestern and familiar, and so were the crooked tilt of her glasses and the tucked-in corners of her lips; but a moment's blink and he realized that she was really nothing like Fred at all. The whole lot of them had abandoned Fred. And they were afraid of him. And though he'd heard stranger tales, none of the last ten minutes had eased his disquiet. But for the sake of that familiarity Wesley grasped at the straws of comradeship.

"So," he said finally, "you did two years over, knowing everything that would happen?"

"And a half," Elisabeth said, and added in a very dry voice, "It was not as fun-filled and exciting as a trip to Pylea, but it had its moments."

The gears in Wesley's mind ground to a sudden halt. He stared at her, and his fork hand lowered to his plate.

"That's right," she said. "Pylea, Caritas, Lindsey McDonald, Cordelia's visions, Angel's war with Darla and Drusilla, Gunn's war with the vampires of L.A., the Thesulac demon in the Hyperion." She looked him directly in the face. "I could," she said quietly, "go on."

And he believed her. He thought of things she hadn't mentioned but could have: images of his affair with Lilah, the whiteboard Fred had made of her bedroom walls, himself tied to a chair and tortured by his Slayer. Conversations, even, with his father on the phone in his office. It was a good thing she wouldn't have seen him last week in Malta (or Manchester, for that matter); that vulnerability was fresh enough to give him disquiet as it was, though perhaps this was not after all very different from the prophetic visions he was seeking out. He thought back suddenly to her solicitude when he tripped on the carpet in the study, and studied her face for traces of pity. He saw none, but the grim concern in her eyes was all too clear.

"Why --" he firmed his voice -- "why are you telling me this?"

"Because it's --" She stopped, lifted her teacup, and put it back down without sipping. "Because telling you is the closest I can get to making it fair. Which isn't very. I'm sorry."

He didn't reply, merely looked at her, his gaze narrowed to her eyes; and she let him.

Finally he said: "That's not very strategic of you."

She relaxed suddenly into a chuckle. "You're right, it isn't. But I'm not the chess player in this family."

Chess. Wesley's mind had shifted back into gear again. "Do you...do you know anything about a demon called Vail?"

She frowned inwardly. "Did you meet him after coming to Wolfram &amp; Hart?"

"Yes."

"Then no, I don't." She cocked her head in open curiosity. "Who is he?"

"He --" _He killed me._ "He was responsible," Wesley said slowly, watching her face, "for hiding Connor from our reality."

She stared at him a moment. Then hit her forehead with the heel of her hand and let out a small gasp. "Connor! Oh, that's it -- that was what was missing -- how could I have -- " She took her hand away and looked at him wide-eyed for a long moment. "Oh, now it's coming back. That was why -- I _knew_ there was a good reason for Angel to make that devil's bargain. Good God. This changes everything."

Wesley stared at her, his fascination a mirror to hers. "It really was that extensive."

"Oh yes," she said. "I guess it was. The famous Connor mindwipe." She shook her head, chuckling. "Guess you know you really live here when they see fit to include you in one of those. Ha!" She hit the table lightly, making the silver chime. The worry in her face seemed to have lightened somewhat. Which was all well and good, but his worry was only increasing. She grinned at him hospitably for the first time. "Have some more quiche," she told him. "I'm telling you, we're trying to get rid of it."

Wesley looked down at his empty plate, and she correctly read his hesitation. "It's all right, you know," she said. "We're not about to have you assassinated in a dark alley." When he looked up at her with a faint glare, she gave him a wry smile. "Catching up with you, is it? I can only count on your generosity not to resent it. Speaking of, if you see fit to do me a kindness, do try not to kill Rupert when you go out drinking with him tonight."

"Who says I'm going out drinking with him?" Wesley demanded.

She waved a dismissive hand. "Oh, it's what men do. I'll make him take Brian too -- that'll make it either much better or totally disastrous, and either suits me fine as long as nobody gets dead. He's starting a family, as you may have noticed."

A kindness. Wesley felt wrongfooted. It was one thing for Giles to recognize him as a threat; it was quite another for his wife to do so and ask him to disarm the threat himself. Wesley wondered, as so often, how he got himself into these things. "I'll bear it in mind," he said cautiously, just as Giles came into the kitchen looking irritable.

"Bloody quiche again?" he said, glaring at the table.

Elisabeth smiled seraphically at him. In a contrarian impulse, Wesley served himself another slice of quiche and took a bite, looking at Giles as he chewed. They sized one another up, and Elisabeth lifted her teacup for a sip in a gesture as wry as it was nonchalant.

"I believe," Wesley said, "we were talking about chess."

*

"Damn and blast!" said Brian Whitaker.

He tried experimentally to move one foot out from under the books that had fallen around him, quickly gave up on that idea, and bent to shift the pile book by book. He had almost freed both feet when his mobile went off, startling him nearly off his balance. Brian swore again and dragged himself free to go and retrieve his phone from the kitchen table.

"Ah, Brian, you're there."

"Rupert." Perfect time for the man to call. Brian glared at the welter of fallen books by the shelf.

"Are you at home, by chance?"

"Yes," Brian said. "What's up?"

"Oh, nothing, I was merely hoping you'd be available to meet an associate of mine this evening over a pint...."

Was it his imagination, or did Rupert sound ill at ease? "A Watcher?" Brian guessed.

"Er, former. Yes."

Brian couldn't decide which was more tempting: to rebuff Rupert and get back to his reading (after he'd straightened the chaos of books in his flat), or to take him up on the offer and enjoy watching him be uncomfortable. He tried the undecided gambit. "Well, I've got a bit of reading to do this evening. But if it doesn't take too long...."

"Excellent," Rupert said briskly. "We are on our way. See you in...oh, about two minutes." Before Brian could protest, he ended the call.

"Two minutes!" Brian said aloud, punching off his phone with a savage thumb. "I suppose I should be lucky he deigned to call ahead at all. Not that it helps. Look at this place." He scanned the flat drearily: it was one large room divided into two areas by a phalanx of bookcases stood back to back. In the weekend pursuit of research materials, he'd left his bed unmade, tossed his bathrobe over one of the chairs at the tiny dining table (which was covered with papers and books with a single empty dinner plate perched on a stack of unmarked essays), and, now, obstructed the path between the spaces with fallen books. He should have known better than to a) pack that upper shelf too tightly and b) try to pull a single book out without getting the stepstool. And he had two minutes to clear it all up.

He grabbed the bathrobe and threw it onto his bed, sheafed the dinner plate onto the small kitchen counter, and was just picking up books when the doorbell went. He glared at the books in his hands. "Fuck it," he said, put down the stack, and shoved the others aside.

Brian opened the door to Rupert Giles, who looked (predictably) rather supercilious, and another man about Brian's age, who looked (if it could be believed) even more supercilious. He felt suddenly like shutting the door on the both of them and making a cup of tea. He didn't, but he stopped caring about his messy flat being seen by these wankers.

He stepped back, and they came in. "Sorry for the short notice," Rupert said, not sounding sorry in the least. "Brian, may I introduce Wesley Wyndam-Pryce. Wesley, this is Brian Whitaker."

"Pleasure," Brian said coolly, as the other man nodded. To Rupert he said, "Did you say something about a pint?"

"Walk to the Mohel all right?" Rupert said, fiddling with his mobile.

"Certainly," Brian said, and waited a moment; Rupert replied belatedly, "I'm trying to text Elisabeth back to tell her where we're going. Damn these contraptions."

"_Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?_" Brian muttered. The other man allowed himself a faint dry smile, and Rupert said, "Wesley, Brian is a teaching fellow in Magdalen. Medieval history. And the Council of Watchers are to him as the Guelphs to the Ghibellines, so make of that what you will."

Brian snorted. "Let me get a jacket and I'll be ready." He escaped over the piled books to his wardrobe in the other room.

Leave it to Rupert, Brian thought, not only to commandeer his evening, but to reference his current research on Florentine politics into the bargain. He came back jacket in hand to find Rupert still awkwardly thumbing buttons on his mobile and Pryce bending over the little display case of artifacts Brian kept in the corner next to the television. He looked up as Brian approached, and spoke for the first time.

"Nice collection," he said. "I see you have a Ha'Vitterin sacrificial dagger. There're not many of them in such good condition."

"A what?" Brian bent to look where Pryce pointed through the glass without touching it, at the dagger and sheath he had neatly labeled "Unidentified ceremonial dagger" when he'd acquired it a few years ago. "You can identify it?" he said.

"A what did you say?" Rupert pocketed the mobile and came to peer into the case. "Ha'Vitterin? Surely it's not old enough."

Brian took his keys from his pocket and unlocked the case. Pryce let him lift the sheath out and offer it to him before putting out his hand to take it. "Yes," he murmured, examining it with eyes and fingers, "yes, the inscription is clear. A very good specimen indeed." Rupert squinted closely over his shoulder and seemed to agree, because he looked at Brian and said, "Where did you get it?"

"Boot sale," Brian said, flippantly, but also truthfully. Rupert snorted.

"Yes," Pryce said. "This particular dagger was the sort used for sacrifices to open portals to the gods of Shi-Adin. The prayer written on the keel here is characteristic."

Brian was interested in spite of himself. He said, "It's not dangerous to keep here, is it?"

"Not unless you've been sacrificing with it in your sitting room," Rupert said.

"Oh no. For that I use my _other_ demonic ceremonial dagger."

Rupert gave him a look, which Brian returned full measure. "Shall we to the pub, then?"

"I'm ready." They turned to the other man, who reluctantly took his eyes from the dagger sheath to return it to Brian, his face unreadable.

"Then we'd best go," Rupert said, "before Wesley's lecture instinct kicks in," earning a clement glare from Pryce. It seemed the faint distaste Rupert had for him was mutual. Interesting, Brian thought. Oh this evening is going to be _loads_ of fun.

"Not unheard of among Oxonians," Brian said, and shrugged into his jacket. "Or Watchers, I suppose."

"Especially if one of them was once Head Boy at the Watchers' Academy," Rupert added, maliciously, as Brian swept them before him out the door.

"There's a Watchers' Academy?" Brian muttered. "That explains a lot."

"Was," Pryce said. "It was also destroyed, I understand."

"Yes," Rupert said briefly, and Brian was reminded that he had arrived late at many horrific scenes that year. He said nothing, but took the lead ahead of the two Watchers down the narrow pavement.

*

Without discussing it, the three men chose a table instead of a booth at the pub. A table, Brian observed to himself, was less private, but it also offered freedom for any one of them to escape at a moment's notice. And the privacy seemed hardly to be necessary, because they all got down half of their first pint without saying a word. This was not better than working.

"Right," Brian said finally, "show of hands. Who actually wants to be here?"

The other two men looked at him impassively. Neither moved.

"That's what I thought," Brian said. "Rupert, give me a reason to be here, or I'm going back to Charles of Valois."

Rupert cleared his throat and took a sip of ale before saying, "Wesley has offered to share with us the results of his reconnaissance in the world, for a retainer, now that his obligations in Los Angeles are ended."

His obligations in Los Angeles. Brian looked with sudden scrutiny at the other man. "Oh," he said finally, "you're _that_ Wesley."

Pryce raised one eyebrow. "And what do you mean by that?"

"Robson said -- " But Brian suddenly didn't want to mention what Robson had said. However, it was too late, as Pryce was looking at him very sharply indeed.

"What did Robson say?"

"He said," Brian said coolly, "that someone sent a robotic duplicate of your father to L.A. and you shot him."

"I see," Pryce said.

Unable to resist his curiosity, Brian said: "Did you really?"

"Yes," Pryce said, without elaborating, earning a sidelong glance from Rupert. Elisabeth, Brian remembered, had had nothing good to say about Wesley's father. It was probably time to get off the subject.

Pryce must have thought so too. "Charles of Valois?" he said.

"Well, not so much Charles of Valois as what the fuck the White Guelphs were thinking letting him in." If he wasn't to be allowed to get back to work, he might as well be flippant about it.

"Perhaps they didn't have much of a choice," Pryce observed.

They seemed to be getting off the subject rather slowly if at all. "Thank you," Brian said dryly. "Perhaps there's not a paper in it after all."

"Oh," Pryce smiled, "I expect there's always something to be said about the circumscribing of choices."

"True." Brian upended his glass and swallowed the last of his pint. "Shall I get us another?"

*

Wesley told them about his short visit to St. Petersburg, and about the following trip to Malta. He could tell that Giles was impatient with the start of the narrative, as he had left out entirely the contact he'd made with his parents, and not elaborated much on the meeting with Dennison, who was miserly with his trust in the best of circumstances, which would make his willingness to speak with Wesley odd, to say the least. Nor did Wesley dwell on his time in Malta other than to identify the Slayer he'd discovered among the Oracles and relate the few things she had had to say that might interest Buffy. Whitaker drank his bitter and studied him with an intensity that would have been off-putting had it not been so reassuringly academic, and when Wesley sketched a possible trip to Morocco, he propped his chin in one long hand and gave Giles a saturnine stare, if it was possible for a fair-haired, grey-eyed man to look saturnine. "Has Harris reached North Africa yet?"

Giles shook his head. "He's back in Gaborone."

Wesley raised an eyebrow at Giles. "Xander's still in the south of Africa? Interesting."

Whitaker had called him "Harris," Wesley noted, which suggested they had met. It also suggested that he thought of Xander as a young man rather than a schoolboy, and Wesley was struck afresh at the passage of time even since Andrew Wells had come to Wolfram &amp; Hart. "I'm beginning to think Mr Giles was wrong about you," that whippersnapper had said to him. Well, he was too tired to prove it now; but it reminded him that there were things he, too, wanted to know.

"What did you do with that girl you took from us?" he asked Giles.

Giles looked suddenly very weary. He turned his pint glass around one quarter circle. "Isolated her," he said. "I'll tell you about it some other time."

Which meant he had not yet succeeded in winning their trust, and might not at all. Wesley wondered why he was bothering with this.

Whitaker was looking warily from one of them to the other. After a moment he said, "Yes, that subject requires a great deal more beer, or to be left severely alone."

Giles grunted, whether in disapproval or agreement it was impossible to tell. Wesley felt an obscure satisfaction that at least the Slayers had not found it any easier to deal with the matter.

"Yes, perhaps another time," Wesley said. "In the meantime perhaps we should discuss payment for my services."

Giles turned and regarded him with heavy-lidded calm. "Did your father cut you off with a shilling?"

Wesley's father would never be so crass as to do something like that. No, his father would shower him with the galling generosity of generations of Wyndams and Pryces, and he would never want for a thing; and Rupert Giles knew that perfectly well. There was a small silence.

"I have assets," Wesley said finally, in an unruffled voice that made Whitaker's grip on his pint glass relax a fraction. "But they are not as fluid as I would like."

Wesley knew what he ought to be bargaining for, but he just couldn't bring himself to do it. Far easier to trade his intelligence for money to travel on, than to barter goods in kind for the knowledge that could damn him. It was none of their business, his death and resurrection. He'd find out the answer himself.

Giles, however, was looking at him with an expression of sudden illumination. "Ah," he said, "so _that_ explains the sudden appearance of _The Black Arts Compendium_ in Edwards's online catalogue. I'd thought all the extant copies of that were accounted for. He's asking a marvelously exorbitant price for it too. I expect you kept it in good condition."

Wesley felt the heat coming to his face. He glared at Giles silently.

Whitaker shot Wesley a puckish half-grin and said, "Yes, it's too bad you're not married to a bookscout who can buy back the books you sell." It was so obviously a barb aimed at Giles that Wesley took no offense, but as if to underscore the point Whitaker gave him the merest wink and turned his grin on Giles.

Giles gave Whitaker a sour glare, and lifted his glass for a long sip. Wesley thought this point was worth exploring.

"You sold some of your catalogue and regretted it?" he asked, mildly.

"Not recently," Giles said repressively.

"And not 'some,'" Whitaker said. "Took a while to get them all back. Well, most of them anyway."

Nettled, Giles said, "Not that _you_ could have helped. 'Boot sale' indeed."

"I'll take you with me next time I go," Whitaker said.

"I'll pass," Giles said into his ale.

"Did you really find that dagger at a boot sale?" Wesley asked.

"I did, as a matter of fact. Not what I came looking for, of course." He grinned, a full grin this time. "I was looking for sporting equipment. You're going to hurt your optic nerves doing that, Rupert."

Giles's faint smile registered points scored. "Perhaps we could get back to the subject under discussion? I would be happy to remunerate Wesley for his information, particularly if it helps him avoid liquidating his collection. Though -- do you still have a copy of the Gloucester Codex?"

"I might," Wesley hedged. "I would have to check." Giles snorted at the obvious dissimulation.

"Mr Foster went to Gloucester," Whitaker said, "and, it is to be hoped, did not drop his codex in a puddle of rain."

"God, no," Wesley said. "Mr Foster keeps his codices in climate-controlled storage."

"I'm glad to hear it," Giles said. "And I'm sure I could offer a price competitive to Edwards's."

Wesley lifted his glass for the last swallows of ale. "I'll keep that in mind," he said.

*

Over a final pint they hammered out a satisfactory bargain and fell to talking about medieval history. Wesley began to see what Elisabeth Bowen had meant about Whitaker's presence making it either much better or much worse: Giles never did fully thaw out, but they had something to talk about besides all the embargoed topics, and it was amusing to watch the man needle Giles in a way that Wesley never could. Wesley wondered what history between them had set up such a prickly alliance. Perhaps if he talked to Whitaker alone --

Giles was asking him when next he would be in Oxford. Wesley thought it over. "I have some errands in London I need to run. A few days, perhaps? Shall I phone you?"

"Yes, that would do." Giles reached into his breast pocket and pulled out one of his cards. "Here are the numbers you'll need. Though perhaps you should have Brian's, too. He also can reach Buffy if I'm not available." His tone was very sardonic.

"Good idea." Brian swallowed down the last of his pint and pulled out his wallet. "Here's my card also."

Wesley collected the cards from the surface of the table and pocketed them, then stood and pushed in his chair. "Right. Well, I'd better be off." He looked at his watch. The last train to London would have gone. Well, he could as easily take lodgings here. His mind was already miles away and traveling fast, and he hardly noticed the other men getting up from the table. "Good evening," he said, and made his abstracted way out of the pub.

The hardest part was accomplished; and he had a lot to think about.

*

As Brian was shrugging into his jacket, Rupert leaned in, his eyes on Wesley exiting the pub. "He took to you fairly well."

"Did he?" Brian said. "You would know better than I. What are you cultivating him for?"

Rupert looked at him as if he were deficient. "You notice, didn't you, how little he said about the end of his work with Angel?"

"He said nothing about that, that I recall," Brian said.

"Precisely." Rupert zipped up his jacket with care.

"Are you sure you're all right to drive home?"

Rupert smiled. "On three pints? I think I'll be fine, thanks."

They walked back to Brian's flat, mostly silent; but when they reached Rupert's car, he turned to Brian and said: "If he makes contact with you, see if you can't get anything out of him in that area."

"You mean, that you couldn't?"

"Yes." Rupert unlocked the door and prepared to slide in. Brian said, "Why doesn't he like you?" and Rupert stopped.

"Two words," Rupert said lightly (if three pints wouldn't impair his driving at least it had loosened his tongue, Brian thought). "Buffy. And Faith." With that, he slid behind the wheel and started up the car.

Brian watched him drive away, then went inside. The pile of books was still there, the display case still open. Brian sat down at the table, picked up a pencil and a book, and fell into a frowning reverie.

*

Two days passed, in which Brian managed to get his books reshelved (and not so tightly this time), his bed made, and his dishes done. After some deliberation whether to correct the label on his demonic dagger, he finally decided to leave it as "unidentified" (because a) he didn't fancy explaining what a Ha'Vitterin ceremonial dagger was to any civilians who might come calling and b) he did not like to ask Rupert, or Pryce for that matter, for the spelling of "Ha'Vitterin"), and shut the display case. A pile of essays grew on his little kitchen table. He grew disgusted with Charles of Valois and thought about simply lazing about on his couch with the _Purgatorio_.

Finally he shook off his discontent with an effort and buckled down to work. And that afternoon his phone rang.

Brian pulled off his reading glasses and answered it.

"Is that Brian Whitaker?" A hesitant, precise voice, and familiar, but Brian couldn't place him.

"Yes, speaking."

"This is Pryce here."

Oh. Of course. Brian sat forward in his chair with a bump. "Yes. Hallo."

"I'm about to go out of the country for some days," Pryce said, still hesitant, "and I was wondering if you'd be free this evening to have a pint."

Brian looked at the table before him, piled with undone work, none of which he wanted to do at the moment. A drink sounded lovely, but why? He could think of any number of reasons he would want to talk to Pryce over a pint, starting with his useful expertise in lore and his stealthy pleasure in scoring off Rupert Giles, but why Pryce would want to talk to him Brian couldn't figure. Perhaps he thought information could be made out of him; and that reminded Brian of Rupert's suggestion that he try and get information out of Pryce. The hazard of drinking someone past their reticence, however, was getting too drunk to remember what one was after. Still, a pint was a pint.

He'd hesitated too long. Pryce said, "However, if you're not free, that's quite all -- "

"Oh no," Brian hastened to assure him, "I'm free. What time did you want to meet? How soon can you be in Oxford?"

"Actually, I'm in Oxford already; I've taken lodgings here, till tomorrow."

"Right. Well -- " Brian suggested meeting at the usual place, and offered a time. Pryce agreed, and they closed the call.

Brian put down his mobile on a stack of essays and smiled faintly. Finally, something to look forward to.

*

Wesley arrived early at the pub and ordered a plate of fish and chips. He took it away to a booth and ate it with only enough attention to notice that it was quite good, then checked his watch. Whitaker should be arriving soon. He went and got a pint, came back to the booth and chased away a pair of students, and sat down to sip slowly at his beer and wait.

Having liquidated a few more of his assets (it hurt to part with the _Six Delphic Texts in Parallel Translation_, but it was worth a lot, and he'd made sure it had a good home. Well, an okay home. Well -- best not to think about it too much), Wesley had returned to his hotel room in Oxford and set about planning his next travel itinerary. If Dennison was right and Madeleine Gillsworth had found a Called Slayer in Cairo, her knowledge of prophecies plus the Slayer's dreams might be worth --

Wesley had tossed his pencil to the hotel notepad in disgust. If a Slayer who was also an Oracle didn't have any answers for him, what made him suppose that the Slayer in Cairo would bring him any closer? He had no reason to expect that the Slayers knew anything -- except that he'd been dead. Everyone, it seemed, knew that. Giles would have known it, if he'd had an open line to the Council, which seemed not to be the case. Unless he'd kept that dark in order to draw Wesley out about his dealings with Angel. Well, Wesley wouldn't be giving him that; nor would he ever speak of the few days he'd spent collapsed at the monastery in Malta, exhausted from a week's constant flight and yet racked with nightmares.

The sisters had found him huddled the first morning in a corner of the guest-house bedroom, flirting again with madness. Wesley remembered the hands reaching to pull him to his feet with an impersonal kindness, like the winds of Malta, like Dennison's handing him a cup of tea, and he had no choice but to let them. He remembered that same relief in being seen and touched for who he was, and that same gall that he had nothing to bargain for it with; the two together counterbalanced him, and he kept possession of his wits, and filed the experience away in the thick-packed drawer of things he preferred not to think about.

_You don't have much time_, Dennison had said, but he had stayed until he could sleep a night almost through, then thanked them with the shame thick in his throat and made his escape. For the sake of that kindness he had allowed himself to consider making contact with Giles, and once he'd allowed the thought, the plans had begun to make themselves -- properly hedged and limited, of course.

_It would be to your advantage_. Yes, surely speaking with the people closest to the source of Slayer knowledge would be better than haring off over the globe in search of individual Slayers and the fragmented knowledge of Watchers in hiding. If he hadn't run -- _walked_ away from his parents' house, he could have had the benefit of the Council's connections to find the person or being responsible for his return. But if the responsible party had done it for a sinister purpose, the last people he'd want knowing about it were the remains of the Council. First thing they'd do would be to hold a parliament on whether to put him back in his grave where he belonged. Whether, and then how. Perhaps they'd give him the choice of something like beheading or poison, or hand him a pistol...no, they wouldn't do that, they'd be concerned he'd open fire on them, starting with Roger, get the job done right this time --

Wesley shook himself hard. Thoughts like this wouldn't do, and he was playing a precarious game as it was. It was going to be difficult to tailor his interviews with former Watchers so that he could ask for his information without giving up his purpose. It was fortunate for him that communications were so fractured, or more people would know it already. He had to work fast.

What he'd told Giles had been true: the Slayers might not trust him, but at least they wouldn't decide out of hand to behead him. _We're not going to assassinate you in a dark alley_. He was doing his search this way, he sighed to himself, because otherwise the choice was between putting himself in the hands of people who despised him or...putting himself in the hands of people whom he despised. And if he wound up back in his grave, at least he would have tried to find his own way there. Just like the poor bloody White Guelphs of Florence.

Wesley dug out his wallet and took out the cards which Giles and Whitaker had given him. He turned over the one from Whitaker and ran his thumb over the Magdalen crest. Even if talking with Whitaker didn't give him a bead on the Slayers, it would be nice to think about medieval history for a while and not his infernal resurrection.

Without thinking about it too hard, Wesley had picked up the phone and dialed the mobile number on the card.

*

He was jerked from his reverie by a voice hailing him, and looked up to see Whitaker coming toward him. Wesley gathered himself quickly and got to his feet to greet him, which made the other man blink and half-smile at the old-fashioned courtesy. He was, Wesley saw now, perhaps a hair taller than himself (and Giles), but his height was slightly obscured by the habitual stoop of his lanky shoulders. "I see you've got yours already," he said, looking at Wesley's near-full pint. "Be right back."

He came back with his own pint and slumped down into the booth across from him. "Thank you for the excuse to come away from the books and drink," Whitaker said. He rubbed his temple with a tired wince.

"I was going to ask how Charles of Valois was coming along," Wesley said.

"He isn't, at the moment. I've got to deal with a large glut of student essays."

"It isn't term time." Wesley frowned thoughtfully at him. It was odd: except for the air of indiscriminate scrutiny and the slightly shabby jacket and cords, he didn't much seem like a don. With the mischievous smile, he looked like he could outprank an undergraduate. Wesley could imagine the man's students expecting a pushover and getting a nasty surprise.

"No," he sighed, "it's between terms, which means that everyone who is up is working just as frantically as during term only with more urgency and disorganization. Two of my colleagues are out of the country doing their research, and I only wish I'd thought of that myself." He took a long pull of his bitter with eyes closed, savoring. "Of course," he went on, "I wouldn't actually dream of taking off just at the moment -- not with the baby on the way, and Elisabeth is giving a presentation during the Fieldstone Colloquium in September. Biggs wanted her to give it during term itself, but the due date -- " the baby's due date, Wesley realized after a moment of confusion -- "is the day before term starts. So it got moved up a month, and she's been working flat out to get that section of her thesis rewritten and revised."

Elisabeth. Wesley thought he could see what made Whitaker's relationship with Giles so prickly. Out loud, he said: "Yes, she mentioned reading English literature at Magdalen."

"So you did meet her," Whitaker said. "Rupert wasn't exactly clear on that point."

"Yes." Wesley shifted his pint glass idly, then took a thoughtful sip. "She told me a very curious story."

"About her dimensional travels?"

"Yes."

Whitaker tilted back his head and gave him a long aquiline look. "You would be, I think, one of the people she knows about."

"It would seem so, yes. Are you -- ?"

He shook his head. "No. No mirrors in other dimensions. So far as I know." He rapped the tabletop for luck.

Wesley couldn't help returning his faint smile. "She reminded me a little of someone I once knew," he said, lifting his pint for a long drink. Thinking about Fred with a pint in hand, he thought to himself, was a good plan from here on in.

Whitaker had returned to studying him shrewdly. "I surmise," he said, with only the merest hesitation, "that a) you loved her and b) she's not alive anymore."

Wesley's abstraction disappeared in a blink. "Correct on both counts," he said coolly, meeting the other man's gaze. "Did you not hear of it?" He wondered how long he had been associated with them -- long enough, it sounded like, to have been a part of them when they decided not to interfere with Illyria's rise. But --

Whitaker said: "The information coming out of Wolfram &amp; Hart was...not exactly comprehensive. Robson told us a few things, but as you may know, he's not a regular correspondent of ours. We did, however," he added dryly, "get more out of him than we did later out of Andrew."

Wesley snorted. "That young man has the most amazing talent for getting one's back up."

Whitaker started to laugh, quiet at first and then unrestrained. "But you have to admit," he said, still grinning, "he's extremely entertaining." He finished off his pint and set down the glass. "Shall I buy us another? What's yours, ale?"

Here it was again, the exit opportunity that he ought to be taking, just as he ought to have stood his ground at his parents' house. But he had sat still and let Giles's wife serve him tea; and dammit, he'd felt more real interest in ten minutes talking with Whitaker about a historical person having nothing to do with either of them than in any of the dozen whole conversations about his own life and death he'd had since waking up in that boardinghouse bedroom.

"Yes," Wesley said, "I'll have another. Thank you."

*

Whitaker got them both another pint and sat down, forward in his seat as if to drink him in along with his bitter. The mischievous look was still in his face, though he had stopped smiling.

"So tell me about her," he said.

Wesley fixed him with a slow glare. "And what if I said no?"

Entirely unthreatened, he sat back and grinned again. "Then you have more steel than I gave you credit for." He laughed into his pint as he took another sip. "That's one in the eye for Rupert. He thinks I might have a nascent talent for getting into people's confidence."

Wesley raised an eyebrow. "Does he indeed?"

"I think he's got it confused with my well-established talent for drinking and talking too much."

"Either that or he considers me an easy mark. So," Wesley said, watching him take a long drink, "does that mean you're a protégé of his?"

To his great satisfaction Brian choked hard and set down the glass with a smack, splattering beer over the table. It took him a long minute to recover. Finally, eyes watering, he gave his throat a final clearing and said, "That was well played. And the answer, as I think you very well know, is no."

Wesley relaxed against the straight back of the settle: for the first time all resurrection, he was actually enjoying himself. He watched Brian mop up the spilled beer with an inadequate paper napkin. Then he said, "She was a brilliant physicist. She was devoured from the inside by the god-king who infected her and now inhabits the shell of her body. I had to lie to her parents about what happened to her."

Brian stopped mopping at the spilled beer. He looked at him without saying anything, in a moment of intense study. "Were her parents...civilians?" he asked finally.

"More or less," Wesley said, with a sigh. Then at Brian's inward look, he added, "Are yours?"

Brian pulled a wry face. "As was I till a couple of years ago. I can't quite think how to start a conversation that's going to lead to demons and an epic battle against the First Evil. I wasn't exactly credulous myself at the start." He sighed and took a swallow from his glass. "It makes going home a little more stressful than it probably ought to be."

"Where's home?" Wesley asked. Somewhere north, if he was any judge of the accent underlying Brian's Oxbridge tones.

"Manchester," Brian said. He noticed Wesley's startled blink. "What?"

Wesley shook his head, dispelling the brief shock with an effort. "Nothing. Just a stray thought. You're from Manchester?"

"Born and bred." What with spillage and drinking, Brian was getting further down his glass than Wesley. Wesley hastened to catch up. "Where's home for you?"

"Grew up in Hampshire," Wesley said, "but as they say, you can't go home again."

"Is that why you came to us?" Brian said.

Damn the man, he had a nasty way of getting to the point. Wesley shook his head. "My mission isn't compatible with the Council's. It remains to be seen if it's compatible with the Slayers'."

"This mission of yours," Brian said into his glass, "is it a big secret?"

_I wish_. "I'm missing some information," Wesley said slowly, suddenly acutely aware of the danger of outright lying, "that I have to identify as well as locate. Now that I don't have the resources of an evil law firm to hand, I've got to find it the old-fashioned way. Hence the traveling." It sounded miserably inadequate, and he wondered what Brian would do if he thought any of it was a lie.

"I see," Brian said. He looked like he saw a lot more than Wesley found comfortable. Wesley lifted his glass and drained the last swallows. What would happen, he thought suddenly, if he simply told him the whole story? Would the sky fall? For a moment the temptation hovered expansive within him. But he breathed out and set down his glass.

"My turn to buy," he said, "I think."

*

Over the next pint Wesley told Brian about Caritas, and Brian asked several questions about demon culture in Los Angeles that showed as much acuity as they did ignorance. He was also interested in the view of Angel that Wesley had to give, knowing him only as the vampire-with-a-soul whom Buffy had loved and who had gotten himself entangled in an evil law firm. It occurred suddenly to Wesley that if no one remembered about Connor until recently, and then not until someone took the trouble of mentioning him, then it would go far to explain Buffy's reluctance to trust Angel, and why she had protected her people from him and refused to help his. Explain, Wesley thought; not excuse. "I knew there was a reason for Angel to make that devil's bargain," Elisabeth Bowen had said, and he wondered if there had actually been some dissension on the subject.

Reminded by this thought, Wesley let Brian buy another pint, and told him how they exorcised the Thesulac demon from the Hyperion, and then moved into the hotel themselves. Brian told him, with a little self-deprecation and a few observations on the use of medieval versus classical Latin in rituals, how they had exorcised Pyke's Lea of Elisabeth's murdered paternal ancestor, thereby cementing Elisabeth's presence in this dimension.

"Look," Wesley said, "should I be concerned about Elisabeth? She said that she wished to make things as fair as possible, but it doesn't mean -- "

" -- that she'd respect your privacy if it meant advantage for Rupert and Buffy?" Brian finished, more gently than Wesley expected.

"Well," Wesley said, "yes."

Brian eyed him thoughtfully for a long moment, and then said, "Elisabeth keeps what she knows close to the vest. It's actually got her in a great deal of trouble one way and another. She's never said anything about you to me; what I know mostly comes from a conversation she had with Robson six months ago."

"About my father."

Brian sighed. "Yes. But what she knows about your father, I think," he said carefully, "comes from when she met him. She...doesn't think much of him, I'm afraid. He was present when the Council kidnapped and interrogated her about her origins a few years ago."

Suddenly a lot of things became clear to Wesley at once. "Is that," he ventured, "why the Council are to you as the Guelphs to the Ghibellines?"

Brian grimaced. "You could say that's how it started," he agreed.

There was a small silence; then, "Are you in love with Elisabeth?" Wesley asked.

Brian frowned into the middle distance, not at all put off by the question. "Buffy asked me that six months ago at Christmas."

Wesley was surprised. "So you've met Buffy, then, as well as Xander."

"Yes, one of these days I'll have shaken hands with the whole crew. I told her," Brian said, getting back to the point with a lazy tilt of the head, "that she was my only best friend, and that...that meant it took me a while to figure out how I felt, but I wasn't in love with her."

There was an obvious unspoken "but" in Brian's answer. Wesley said, "Was that the truth?"

"Yes. But I did have to man up a bit more than I expected when she came up pregnant and they got married." Brian scowled obscurely across the room, full of the pub's regular drinkers. "I hope Rupert appreciates the effort."

Even with plenty of beer inside him Wesley hadn't missed the order of events. "Would they have married," he said, "if she hadn't -- "

Brian shrugged. "Maybe, maybe not so soon. They were a permanent thing already; but a baby changes things, you know."

Wesley surely did.

"It was very quiet -- they didn't want to attract evil, like weddings always seem to. Just them, and Anne officiating, and me, and Buffy." Brian smoothed the rim of his glass with a long finger. "And Andrew."

They looked at one another and started laughing at the same moment.

"Do you know," Brian said, wiping his eyes, "that he ordered fuchsia wedding napkins with Elisabeth and Rupert's name on them, to give to the wedding party? Only the company didn't take orders as small as six. So Andrew ordered the smallest batch available."

Wesley asked obligingly, already grinning, "Which was how many?"

"Three hundred."

It took them a long time to recover from the laughing spasm that gripped them, but at last they did, and Brian took out his handkerchief and gave his flushed face a hard once-over. As Wesley watched he put the handkerchief away and lifted his empty glass. "I do believe," he said, with an arch lift of the brows, "that I've had a bit too much to drink."

Wesley poked at his own empty glass. "One more for luck?"

"Yes, dammit, why not? Whose turn is it?"

"Don't remember," Wesley said. "I'll give you the money if you fetch them. I get specially clumsy when I've been drinking."

"And you'd deny me the entertainment?" Brian said, but he took the money and got up -- without any headlong awkwardness. He must be, Wesley decided, watching him approach the bar with careless grace, a practiced drinker. Entertainment. Wesley thought he actually wouldn't mind being laughed at by Brian; but the reason for that wasn't clear. The matter needed exploration.

Brian was back quickly, plunking down their drinks and himself down after. As Wesley collected his, Brian lifted his own glass with a dry and whimsical smile.

"Here's to luck," he said.

*

When they stumbled out of the pub some time later, Brian felt as if he'd been drinking champagne instead of beer. He took a long, blissful breath of the night air; the heat had broken the night before, and the pavements were still damp from the rain that had fallen. It was late enough that the Oxford night life had boiled away and only the clubs were still going strong. He laughed at nothing in particular.

"'Drunk again, drunk again.' Well," he said to Wesley, then changed it to, "Steady, Pryce! You'll be in the street in a moment." He grasped the back of his jacket and kept him perpendicular. "You weren't kidding, were you?"

"'Fraid not," Wesley murmured.

"Where are you staying? I'll walk you back."

Wesley stopped in the middle of the pavement and squinted thoughtfully one direction and another. Brian started to laugh. "Can't you remember?"

"I'll have it in a moment," Wesley said, with a dignity that made Brian snort.

"Guess you're walking _me_ home," Brian said, "where there's coffee. And if you still don't remember, I have a fold-out couch."

His own voice sounded loud in his ears, and he wondered if he had really just stopped short of a verbal invite. On a sudden impulse he grabbed the man's wrist as they walked along, and was relieved to find a pulse there. He let go, disturbing Wesley's balance again, and had to steady him by the back of the collar to keep him from crashing into him.

"Thanks," Wesley mumbled. He hadn't protested at Brian's ham-handed solicitude, and it occurred to Brian that the pulse he'd felt might be his own.

"You're not a vampire, I hope," Brian said.

"Not last time I checked."

They both started laughing again. Absurdity piled on absurdity, Brian thought.

Inebriated with hilarity as well as beer, they found their way back to Brian's flat: he had assiduously developed a steady decorum over the years that would uphold his dignity as a fellow even while drinking, and even that had slipped by the time they reached his door. Brian fished out his keys and began fumbling through them for the right one.

"No, dammit -- that's the one to my rooms in college -- " he muttered to himself as Wesley laughed at him.

At last he found the right key and they reeled inside, falling together against the door as they shut it. Brian tossed his keys to the little stand by the door with the usual gesture, missed it entirely, and they heard the keys fall with an anticlimactic smackle to the carpet. This too was hilarious. Brian reached across Wesley for the light switch, thinking he'd better pick them up before they tripped over them. As he reached, his face close to Wesley's, Wesley bent his head forward and kissed his mouth.

Startled, Brian forgot completely about the light switch. He was too off-balance to pull back, but Wesley stopped almost at once, leaving them face to face in the darkness of the flat, silent except for their breathing. It had definitely been nothing more or less or other than a kiss, though.

Before Wesley could withdraw with apology for the mistake, and before he could form a coherent rationale, Brian kissed him back, with great decision; because for one thing kissing was always a great thing to have on an evening's agenda, and for another thing if there was going to be any unplanned kissing happening here he wanted it to be his idea. He flattened Wesley against the door and let him have it. That would show him.

Far from being repelled by the force, the other man responded, and Brian's interest was roused past curiosity to appetite. He collected them together against the door -- thank God for strong, upright surfaces -- and set about tasting him in earnest. It had been quite a long time since he'd kissed a man; fortunately there wasn't any special trick to it, unless you counted the diplomacy of initiating the kiss in the first place, and Wesley had taken care of that bit.

Wesley also had ideas of his own, or at least his hands did. Right then. Two could play at that game. One could see if Wesley's hair was as nice to touch as it looked; yes, it was, and smelled nice too. Actually, this close his skin smelled maddeningly wonderful, and not just because it had been so long since Brian had -- God, how long had it been? He had been trying to keep busy and not think about it because a drought of three years was just too damn depressing --

His jacket was off. He levered his shoes off one heel at a time, almost falling over them in the process, and Wesley snickered at him, so Brian kissed him again and drew him away from the door, further into the flat, closer to where his bed was. He had clean forgotten any previous thought of the fold-out couch, or the coffee, or even the lights: he was thinking about the buttons on Wesley's shirt, and the twisted sleeve of his own light pullover, and then both of those were off and away, and they had to be closer to the bed by now --

They were, because they suddenly crashed together into Brian's bookshelf wall. Books showered down, attacking them, and they were laughing helplessly and warding them off -- "Oh, God, what a mess!" Brian said --

\-- and then they had stumbled over and around the obstacles and had made it to the bedside, and Brian was falling over his trouser legs as they dropped, and he was exultantly, achingly, gloriously hard: he fell with inebriate grace onto the bed and drew Wesley with him, helping him as he kicked off his own trousers.

There followed a long confused interlude in which Brian couldn't be sure they had even both got properly naked, rolling among the disturbed covers and finding first one grip and then another on each other's skin. Then the other man's hand found his cock, and all Brian's senses were undone. _Oh dear_, Brian thought. _Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh yes._

After that the confusion was as welcome to his bed as Wesley himself. Brian's last coherent thread of intention was to show his guest the best hospitality he knew: and he did, reaching, smoothing, stroking, tasting, until bliss took over, with dark heavy sleep right behind.

*

At first Brian thought it was the headache that woke him up. Without opening his eyes he could sense that the sun was up and whatever time it was, he was late. He had also drunk too much. But there was movement in the flat, and Brian dragged his eyes open a crack to see Pryce gathering up his clothes from the floor. Oh. Right. Pryce. Brian fell back into sleep for a moment.

When he opened his eyes again Pryce was tucking his shirttails into his wrinkled trousers and buttoning them up. He saw that Brian was awake, and offered him a brief smile, which apparently served for greeting, because he then said quietly: "I've got to be going, I'm afraid. My flight goes in just a few hours." He picked up his jacket from the foot of the bed where he'd laid it and shrugged lightly into it. "Thank you for your hospitality." The smile he gave with the words was both dry and pleasant. As Brian struggled up onto his elbows, he picked his way around the bookshelf wall and the fallen books. A moment later the door opened and softly shut, leaving a silence so unadulterated that Brian wondered if he had imagined Wesley altogether. But no, there were Brian's clothes on the floor; and he was naked, and the bed was the total wreck it only was when he shared it.

His headache was clearly going to be an impediment to absorbing the reality of the day and the dimmer reality of the night before. Brian pushed his jaw to one side and frowned blearily around at his surroundings, thinking. Outside, his neighbor pushed off on his bicycle with its familiar clickety-click of the chain. The dimness of his flat was slowly lightening.

"Huh," Brian said, finally.


	3. Corniche el-Nile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which, as the saying goes, denial ain't just a river in Egypt.

For future reference, Wesley noted to himself, a hangover and a long plane trip are two things that should not be mixed. He shut his eyes, stoically bearing against the pervasive roar of the engines and the pressure of air and torque, and concentrated on not throwing up.

He couldn't remember how many pints he'd had, but however many it was, it was one too many, which had been a massively bad plan. To say nothing of jumping into bed with Brian Whitaker, which was also not his best idea ever. He might have to work with the man; what if it made an awkwardness? Well, _probably_ not. Brian struck Wesley as a man difficult to faze in such matters; and perhaps it would even be... -- but it didn't do to press one's luck. Or pledge it with one pint too many the night before a flight to bloody Egypt.

*

He managed to make it to the ground in Cairo without using the airsick bag or running for the plane's toilet. But he wasn't quite so lucky when he stepped out of the terminal into a wall of searching, sticky heat; at once he made an about-face and retraced his steps to the restroom.

As he splashed water on his face at the tap, he paused to examine himself in the mirror. Same worried, shellshocked expression, same half-sharp-eyed, half-pain-clouded gaze as he'd had for as long as he could remember. Pale, of course, from the hangover and the lack of sleep. Being dead and resurrected didn't seem to have made much difference to him; perhaps it had frozen him in place -- a depressing thought. If that were the case, he seemed to be existing only to be an object of other people's pity or curious interest...but no, this was definitely the hangover talking. He hadn't actually regretted going to Oxford. It was time for him to pull himself together and do what he came for.

Wesley dried his face and went in search of lodgings. Before he went to see Madeleine Gillsworth, he needed enough recuperation to guarantee he had his wits about him. A day's sleep and exploration should just about meet the case.

*

That last pint, Brian thought to himself as he sat down to work that afternoon, was definitely ill-advised. Not to mention going straight to bed without drinking any water first, let alone the whole thing about not going to bed _alone_. Brian tried to remember his usual operating procedure for taking someone home, before the Vampire Incident. It definitely had involved discreet inquiries about communicable diseases dovetailed into flirtatious remarks. It had also involved a modicum of sobriety, enough to ensure he wasn't clumsy. Brian had prided himself on his methods of seduction. But apparently all his methods had gone out the window when --

Yes, quite ill-advised.

His headache, however, was ebbing away, and he was getting down some preliminary sentences to tie together portions of his research. He absorbed himself in work, then went home to make himself a sandwich for supper, and picked up his books again.

Then the phone rang.

He reached for his mobile almost without looking at it, and answered the call.

"Brian?" It was Elisabeth, with a note in her voice he hadn't heard in a long time. He sat up at once, and all thoughts of work fell away.

"What's up?"

"Emergency meeting," she said grimly. "How soon do you think you could come out here?"

*

"Wesley Wyndam-Pryce," Gillsworth said, giving the two trochees of his name their full sagging weight before coming down flat at the end. Wesley winced inwardly, hearing all the mortifying echoes of past introductions and self-references. He would never get her to call him simply "Pryce," either.

He picked his way across the large fern-fronded drawing room and, at her invitation, seated himself in a cushioned chair across from her, under a slowly-revolving ceiling fan that troubled the shadows from the tall windows.

"You look a great deal like Roger did at your age," she said. Wesley kept his face stoic, but she added, "A matter of chagrin to you both, I'm sure. It's a pity you didn't _actually_ kill him. What fun that would have been. Would have kept the Watchers in gossip for months."

She gestured with a delicate liver-spotted hand to a bone-china tea service on the low table. When Wesley hesitated, she said, "Don't worry, I'm not going to poison you, or drug you. My malice is of quite another kind." She watched him pour them each a cup, with sharp, undimmed eyes. She had been a formidable Watcher in her day, and apparently was still. "Thank you, dear boy. Your mother raised you properly, I see. The Robsons always had a reasonable sense of propriety, though I doubt it does her any good at Wyndam Hall. Now. You've come to look at my notes on prophecies concerning resurrections."

Wesley had told her nothing on the phone about his business other than that he was in town and wanted to do some research among her materials, for a negotiable trade. He narrowed his eyes at her and said nothing.

"Oh, don't be such a pillock. Your cousin Robson has been beating the hedgerows looking for you. He called me three days ago explaining that you'd made a reappearance in the land of the living. I told him I hadn't seen you since you were a toddler. Oh, now don't _leave_, Wesley. I haven't told him where you are. Good Lord, where would be the amusement in that?"

Wesley sank back into the cushions of his chair, warily.

"That's better. Don't you have anything to say? I suppose Roger cut your mental legs out from under you a few times too often. No wonder you turned to projectile weapons for solace."

"The question," Wesley said quietly, keeping his anger in check, "is whether we can do business."

"Oh, _business_." Gillsworth waved her hand lightly and returned it to support her teacup. "'Business' is Watcher for blackmail. I'd blackmail you for keeping quiet about getting killed in L.A., but it doesn't sound like it's going to do you any good."

"Why would you care?" Wesley said.

She looked at him amused. "I begin to think that Roger was wrong about you," she said. "I care, because the art of blackmail demands it. There is simply no point in doing 'business' if the 'business' has no useful context."

"Money is a context," Wesley suggested.

"And do I look like I need money? Don't be so obtuse."

Wesley said coolly, "You might need me to keep my mouth shut when Buffy Summers asks me if I know of any Slayers she hasn't got on her list."

She smiled suddenly and set her tea down in her saucer. "Oh, my dear boy. Who told you I have a Slayer?"

"Sources," Wesley said.

"Well, your sources are -- " she flicked him a gimlet look -- "addled. I do not have a Slayer."

"No?"

"No," she said. "I have a great-granddaughter. All the difference in the world."

"I see."

"And Miss Summers is welcome to try and take her, if that's indeed how it works. But I doubt it. Do you know how it works, Wesley?"

He didn't, but he wasn't sure whether she was asking to find out, or to find out he didn't know.

Not that his silence fooled her. She said, "I suggest you have a little more research to do. Still," she smiled, "I think we can do business."

"I'm glad to hear it," Wesley said gravely.

"The Wyndam-Pryces always did have all their sphincters tightly cinched," she said. "Do relax and drink your tea."

*

"What's this all about?" Brian said, when he arrived at Pyke's Lea.

"Have you eaten?" Elisabeth said, taking his jacket. "There's some lentil soup in the pot still."

"I had a sandwich, and you didn't answer my question." Elisabeth still didn't answer. She hung up his jacket and started down the hall to the study. Brian followed her closely. "Elisabeth -- "

"Rupert's starting a conference call with Buffy. He's going to brief her on what we got from Robson today."

"Robson used his beacon?" That didn't sound good, even if Elisabeth hadn't delivered the news in such a grim tone.

"No," and he relaxed a little at the touch of humor in her voice. "He just called. How he got my number I didn't ask." But her face was shadowed as he passed her through the study door.

Rupert looked up from the chair he was sitting in by the large hearthstone. "Good," he said, "you're here. I was just about to call Buffy."

Brian took his seat in one of the other two chairs pulled close and frowned at them both. "So you heard from Robson today," he prodded them.

"Yes," Rupert said, fiddling with his mobile. He said nothing else for a moment, and Brian waited impatiently.

The cat appeared from nowhere and leaped into Elisabeth's ever-narrowing lap. She shifted herself and ran her hand along the black silk of his back as he arched it. "And where were _you_ when Wesley was in the house, I'd like to know?" she said. "Talk about dereliction of duty."

"Probably sulking somewhere," Rupert said. "He doesn't like the way I clean his litterbox."

"You'll have to put up with it for the duration, I'm sorry," Elisabeth said to both of them, and the cat lifted the tip of his tail to brush under Elisabeth's nose before launching himself across to Brian's lap.

"Wesley?" Brian repeated, gathering the cat in abstractedly. "Is that what this is about? Something about Pryce?"

Elisabeth was wrinkling her nose and rubbing at the place the cat's tail had swiped. Rupert looked up to meet his eyes at last.

"Yes," he said. "According to Robson, he's supposed to be dead."

*

Gillsworth showed him into a large room without windows that contained shelves upon shelves of archival boxes. "The catalog book is on the table," she said. "You can stay as long as you like. Dinner will be at seven. I'll tell Ratib to fix you up a bedroom if you choose to sleep."

Wesley opened his mouth to protest, but at her shrewd look shut it again. Sleeping away from Gillsworth's house, before he was finished with his research, was just as dangerous as sleeping _in_ it. He resolved to do his work quickly and not need the sleep at all.

"Why give me the run of your archives?" he asked. "You don't know what I'm going to do with this information."

Gillsworth waved away his suspicion as if irrelevant. "Any Watcher worth his salt," she said, "is driven to follow his nose wherever it leads him. Or his penis. Whichever happens to be in the ascendant."

Wesley was able to stifle the laugh before it rose, but could not stop the smile quirking at his lips.

"Ah, a sense of humor, I see. You must have picked that up in America. You certainly didn't get it at home. I think you must be an improvement on previous generations, Wesley. Roger bridled for weeks when I tried that line on _him_."

Oh dear.

"And if you're worried I'm flattering you, you needn't be. If you're an improvement on previous generations of Wyndam-Pryces, it is not necessarily something to brag of."

"And where does that leave you?" Wesley said coolly.

"In possession of the largest collection of research on prophecy in this hemisphere. And," she added, "any number of penises, back in my _floruit_. The trick is to ask the right questions. A word to the wise is sufficient."

Wesley smiled at her suddenly, a real smile. "I'll bear it in mind."

"Of course. Dinner at seven, if you remember it. Good afternoon." She sailed her slow way back down the corridor.

Wesley turned to the catalog book and mentally rolled up his sleeves.

*

"So what are we thinking?" Buffy said bluntly. "Is it the First?"

Rupert had put his mobile on speaker and set it down on the little table between them. Brian stroked the cat on his lap and tried not to shiver.

"I don't think so," Rupert said. "Wesley and I are not on such terms as to shake hands, but I remember making physical contact with him once or twice."

"I think I touched him too," Elisabeth said.

"I touched him," Brian said softly, with a long inward stare. But neither of them was looking at him.

He remembered the horrifying use the First had made of Elisabeth's face and voice, and it almost didn't matter that he knew it was impossible in this case. The French doors of the study were open to the evening breeze, which was cooler and fresher than it had been the last week; but Brian felt cold. Worse, he felt exposed: any moment they were going to look at him and read correctly the meaning behind his shivering; and then the pity would start. Brian firmed his feet flat on the rug.

"And I served him two slices of quiche," Elisabeth said. "Could the First have faked eating quiche?" Her voice was calm, but the pinched look in her face was obvious. Rupert cast a glance her way, and his face hardened in an expression that boded no good to Wesley, First Evil or not. "And I remember," Elisabeth went on, "the shock of meeting him in the flesh. I hadn't had a shock like that in a while. I didn't realize he was quite so tall. And his scent. Of course, I can smell anything at fifty paces these days -- "

Brian had stopped listening. He said, "If he's not the First, then what is he?"

"Well," Buffy said, "that's what we need to find out, isn't it? Do you have contact info for him?" Brian couldn't tell if she'd directed that question to him or to Rupert, and he was afraid to answer her, afraid it would all come out.

Rupert took the question for himself. "No," he said, ruefully. "I gave him ours, but didn't ask for his. I don't suppose he carries a mobile. He didn't offer a number to call."

"Do you know where he is?"

"No," Rupert said, and Brian mentally kicked himself for not asking Wesley that question this morning at least.

"Did he seem...confused? when you met him?" Buffy asked.

Brian shook his head, unable to articulate anything, and Rupert said, "No, he was fairly self-possessed."

"That could be an act, though," she said, sounding thoughtful. For a moment Brian wished she were in the room so he could read her face instead of listening to her voice burning the inadequate mobile-speaker; but that would mean she could then read his, and that would never do.

"Buffy," Rupert said, "it's not like when you were resurrected, you know."

"But we don't know that," Buffy said, and this time Brian, led by Rupert, could interpret the uncertainty in her voice. "We don't know anything. We don't know if he was in a heaven or a hell, we don't know how he got back here, we don't know what he's up to -- "

"And you think if we just ask him, he'll tell us all those things?" Rupert said, and the sardonic tone was so clear that for a moment Buffy didn't reply.

Before she could, Elisabeth said, "If he's not the First, do we proceed on the assumption that he's...not evil?" She ran a protective hand over the curve of her belly.

Buffy said regretfully, "No, I don't think we can do that. We don't know if Wolfram &amp; Hart still has a hold on him. For all we know, they _all_ had to put their signatures on evil contracts. He can't be trusted."

_Can't be trusted_. The words were like a sudden twist in the gut. Brian _had_ trusted him. There was no getting around it.

"No," Rupert said, letting his gaze wander the distance of the room, "but he didn't seem to expect it was necessary in order to do business."

"Well, there's business," Buffy said dryly, "and there's letting a Watcher-turned-evil-minion into your life." Rupert snorted.

Elisabeth shuddered. "I hope that's not how it is. I don't like to think of Wesley evil," she said.

"It's not a pleasant prospect," Rupert agreed. "But even if he's not, the position is rather problematic."

Brian stroked the cat, who had curled tightly across his lap, and drew a long hardy breath. "So then," he said, "what do we do?"

*

Several hours into it, Wesley rubbed his eyes and took a sip of the tea that had been brought him. He had started with the bulky catalog and turned its pages, observing the scheme of the boxes' organization and noting the most relevant topic sections. Then he took down the most promising boxes and lined them up neatly on the long table.

He was carefully turning over manuscripts in a folder when Gillsworth appeared again.

"Hard at it, I see," she said. "You missed dinner. I knew you would, so I didn't invite my great-granddaughter. You would have liked her, though. Her name is Jasmine."

Wesley looked up briefly. "Not a name I'm fond of."

"So I hear." She watched him turn over manuscript leaves. "Finding anything of interest?" she asked after a moment.

"You have quite a fascinating collection," Wesley said, without lifting his head. "I keep seeing references to a scroll called 'Etruria sigma x'."

"Yes," she sighed. "Every so often I offer something tempting to Dickinson to see if he'll part with it; but he won't. It's all right; I've read the scroll twice, so I know my references are correct -- though what I'd give for a memory like Zachary Dennison's."

Knowing it was a barb aimed at him, Wesley did not react. He turned over another manuscript leaf. "This is Carlyle Dickinson you're talking about?"

"Yes. Though I wouldn't trifle with him if I were you."

"I should be afraid of him?" Wesley's voice was mild as a lamb's.

"Oh, you'll stir up that hornet's nest anyway, so I won't bother advising you. But you would do better to stick to your alliance with Miss Summers."

"I don't have an alliance with Miss Summers," Wesley said.

"Well, she hasn't got one with you. But she does like to rescue strays, so I expect it's only a matter of time before she decides to trust you."

This was growing fairly tedious. Wesley closed the folder and took out another.

"Of course," she said, "given your history, it's unsurprising you'd develop a loyalty for anyone who shows you kindness."

That brought Wesley's head up. "That's rubbish, of course," he said, giving her the look that had backed Gunn against a wall and made Whitaker tighten his grip on his pint glass. Gillsworth, of course, did neither, merely purring at him from under her thatch of bright white hair. "In the first place," he said calmly, "I have given my loyalty at times in the face of great unkindness. And in the second place, if I'm only loyal to those who are kind, I fail to see why you think my loyalty would belong to Buffy and her people."

"And in the third place," Gillsworth said, "one could make a case that you take a perverse pleasure in serving people who show you a certain sort of _un_kindness. But none of the three gets at the truth."

"Indeed." Wesley refused to make it fully a question.

"Child," she said, "I never said you were only loyal to those who are kind to you. Quote me correctly. I said you develop loyalties for those who show you kindness -- however unkind they may be later. It's a heady wine, kindness. And you've not been taught how to drink it."

"So what do you advise?" Wesley asked, keeping his arid gaze on her face. "Become a teetotaller?"

"Oh, that it were possible. No. But I have no advice."

"Except to go to Buffy," Wesley said disgustedly, opening the folder before him. "You and everyone else."

"Well," she said, with a dryness worthy of Buffy herself, "it does eventually reach a point where one is belaboring the obvious."

Wesley slapped the folder shut. "Indulge me," he said, glaring at her. "What is this obvious that I am apparently missing? Other than that I could be peacefully asleep in my grave right now instead of contemplating eighty Hollinger boxes of highly valuable bollocks?"

"Oh, let's list the affinities," she said. "Someone who's been resurrected, to everyone's great consternation including her own, and whose Watcher has been exiled from his heritage. Who thinks she wrote the book on kicking over the traces and is fond of yanking on threads and being surprised when they pull down great loads upon her head. Whose great strength and great weakness both lie in where she places her trust. And whose right-hand witch specializes in mapping dimensional linkages." Her dark gimlet eyes held his.

For a moment Wesley was too angry even to breathe. Then it all passed out of him in a great weariness. "You forget," he said. "I was never Buffy's Watcher. Not in the way that counted. She doesn't hold my bond."

"She also," Gillsworth said, with an air of imparting a deliciously nasty secret, "does not currently hold the Scythe."

As he stared, she gave him a light wave and moved back through the doorway. "And if that doesn't pique your curiosity," she added as she went away, "nothing will. Good night to you, Wesley Wyndam-Pryce. It's been such a pleasure."

*

Brian drove home in the deepening night, still viscerally shaking. Once the First had been eliminated, Buffy and Rupert and even Elisabeth had ended the meeting taking the possibility of Wesley's evil minionhood with relative matter-of-factness; but Brian could not. They had decided to wait till Wesley surfaced again to ask him for an explanation, and meanwhile a message was sent to their network to keep a lookout for him while Willow checked the parameters of everyone's protection spells.

Rupert had noted Brian's controlled shiver and said, "Wesley's been in contact with you, has he not?"

"Yes," Brian had said briefly.

"Did he tell you anything that would shed light on his reappearance?"

Brian had been combing his memory for just such a thing. "No," he said, and that was when his fear had deepened into anger.

"God," he said aloud in the car, "what an idiot I've been! 'What were you thinking, Brian?' 'I dunno Mum, it seemed like a good idea at the time.' Getting drunk with a dead man and taking him to bed. What a brilliant show that was, Whitaker. What's Buffy going to say when she finds _that_ out, eh? 'Welcome to our support group for ill-advised sexual intrigues, Brian. Meetings are on Tuesdays; bring a pastry'? Hardly. Oh yes, you can have a fling with a good-looking devil hundreds of years old and stick the dismount, well done to you. Meanwhile I've just made a bloody fool of myself -- _again_. And Pryce -- even if he's not evil, he's an arsehole. Best that can be said. God -- I _trusted_ him. What a fool. What an idiot -- "

He was in over his head, as usual. Brian hated that feeling. He gripped the wheel and glared ahead at the road. There was only one thing to do, paltry as it seemed: get back to his work. And if Pryce showed up --

"You'd better have a damned good explanation," Brian muttered.

*

Wesley managed to get through all the relevant boxes without recourse to sleep. But by the time he had satisfied himself that none of Gillsworth's notes cross-referenced to him, or Manchester, or Vail, he was bleary-eyed and stubble-cheeked, and when he stood up from the table, he had to grip it to steady his spinning head. With a sense of unreality he left Gillsworth's house as the day was dawning and headed for the airport.

His next goal was clearly Europe. Dickinson was notoriously difficult to pin down, but Wesley could think of one or two Watchers who could tell him what he wanted to know. But even if he solved the tricky puzzle of how to contact Dickinson and get a view of his scroll, he didn't know what he'd do next if the scroll didn't give him a lead. He tried not to think of what that might mean: that Vail had airbrushed out all the leads, that Wesley was trapped in his ignorance, that there was no one who could help him.

Meanwhile it wouldn't hurt to report in to Oxford. Gillsworth was right that he needed to know how the Slayers' network operated toward its individual members; and if he was able to satisfy himself on that point, he could offer the information about Gillsworth's great-granddaughter, and perhaps, if things looked propitious, initiate a very delicate inquiry about the Scythe.

Not that he was interested in yet another wild-goose chase. But if Slayers were part of the key to the mystery, it was best to know where that weapon was, and who held it.

He dozed on the plane; but it was very poor sleep, and by the time his flight was wheels down in London, Wesley's very blood felt heavy. He could die twice over, he thought, and still not get enough rest. What to do next? Going direct to Oxford would put him rather late in the evening to contact Giles for a full report, during which he would not be very alert. But staying the night in London might leave him too little time before his flight out the next day for a round trip to Oxford and a flexible length of conversation. Like a tired child, Wesley considered the options and disliked all of them heartily.

He let inertia carry him, and some time later found himself on a train for Oxford. Shortly after that he found himself in possession of a plan.

He would go to see Whitaker first. Whitaker was in Oxford proper; he was likely to be at home or within reach; he might conceivably be willing to let Wesley crash at his flat or at least sit down for an hour or two without much need for explanation. As soon as the plan and its rationale had lined itself out in Wesley's mind, it seemed as if he had meant to carry it out all along.

_Any Watcher worth his salt is driven to follow his nose or his penis, whichever is in the ascendant_. Wesley shut his eyes, leaning his head back against the train wall, and smiled to himself. But which was it? Was it a bad sign that one didn't know?

Wesley fell into a doze imagining what Gillsworth would say to that.

*

When the knock came at Brian's door, he was deep in a book, a pen forgotten in his hand.

Two days had brought his anger to a low continuous simmer, which he had turned into a restless energy that drove him between his flat and Magdalen, a man on a mission. He had avoided Elisabeth and Rupert, not wanting them to see his embarrassment, but had answered promptly every text and email Elisabeth sent him -- he was determined never to leave Elisabeth neglected when there might be an evil on the rise, and it reassured him to hear from her. There had as yet been no mention of the A-word, which was just as well; he was jumpy enough as it was.

The knock on his door brought his gaze up out of his book at once: it started tentative, and grew firmer. Then repeated after a few seconds.

Brian put down his book and his pen. He got up and looked through the peephole: it was Wesley.

At once Brian opened the door and stood silent, staring a hole through him to the deepening dusk. Wesley saw his expression and blinked, but beyond that remained provokingly unruffled. "Good," he said, "you're home. I was wondering if I might -- perhaps if -- may I --?" He gestured inside.

"Can you?" Brian said, and one of these days he was going to have to develop a truly forbidding tone of voice. The voice he used on students didn't appear to work on Watchers.

"Ah," Wesley said, the trouble clearing from his face. "How remiss of me. Of course." He stretched out a hand past the threshold, nearly reaching Brian at the chest. Brian looked at it a moment, then reached past the hand to Wesley's lapel and dragged him in. He shut the door and backed him hard against it with both fists wound in his jacket fronts.

"I say, Whitaker --" The beginning of a smile tugged at the corner of Wesley's mouth, but disappeared once he got a look in Brian's face.

"As you're here," Brian said quietly, "perhaps you wouldn't mind explaining one or two things."

"As for example?" Wesley's voice was maddeningly light, and his eyes were locked on Brian's.

"As for example," Brian ground out, "why we might have received word that you'd been killed in L.A."

Wesley was silent. But it was clear from his face that he knew what Brian was talking about: Brian saw rue, and perhaps relief, and most infuriating of all, a touch of dry humor. "Who told you that?" he said finally.

His refusal to answer the question directly roused Brian's fury even further; but he said, "We were contacted by the Council through Robson."

"Ah," Wesley said, not sounding surprised in the least.

"_Well?_"

"Let go of me," Wesley said calmly. It was a request, but not a helpless one. No doubt Wesley could kill him where he stood at any moment. Brian let go of him with a final shove and backed up a few paces, breathing hard. He watched Wesley brush his jacket straight and edge carefully into the room.

"What information did Robson have to give?" he asked.

Could the man not answer a simple question? "Are you preparing to lie to me?" Brian said.

"No."

Brian stood silent a moment, raking Wesley with his gaze: his clothes had travel creases and he was imperfectly shaven. He didn't look evil; what he looked was supercilious and tired both at once, neither of which Brian found conciliating. "We were told," he said finally, "that your appearance at your parents' door was a great shock. We were told that the Council had made inquiries as to what became of your crew after the battle. They were unsuccessful, except in your case. Robson said they found out you were killed fighting an archdemon called Vail."

Wesley's face changed. "Did they get possession of my body, then?"

For an instant the earth seemed to lurch under Brian's feet: it was one thing to hear it from Robson, quite another to hear it from the dead man in question. "Are you saying it's true?" he said, in a constricted voice. "Is that what happened?"

"Yes," Wesley said. "So far as I know."

"And you didn't see fit to mention it?" Brian's hands curled into fists.

"I was busy mentioning a lot of other things," Wesley said, finally beginning to look nettled.

"Yes, well --" Brian's voice rose to a shout -- "don't you think that _may_be the fact that you were _dead_ might be _one of the important ones?_"

Wearily, Wesley put up a hand to massage his temple: a gesture that chafed a raw place in Brian's psyche.

"Or did you think I wouldn't get it?" he demanded. "Perhaps you thought I wouldn't be able to understand what it meant --"

"It's not you who's having a hard time understanding it!" Wesley took his hand away from his face and glared at him, and all at once Brian could read correctly the weary lines in his face. "Do you think I'm going to blab the matter to anyone else till I know what I'm up against?"

"You still should have bloody well told us, instead of leaving us to find it out at third hand like that." Brian had stopped shouting, but he wasn't about to let him get away with it.

"In any event, I'm obviously now alive and well, so why all the uproar?"

Brian gave a snort that was half a laugh. "You wouldn't ask that if you'd spent the year before fighting the First Evil."

"Oh, yes. I'd forgotten. The First Evil." Wesley gave him a narrow look. "And I could have been its avatar. But surely you would have dismissed that possibility, since you knew quite well I could be touched."

There was nothing Brian could do about the hot flush sweeping over his face.

A small, sardonic smile touched Wesley's lips. "Or didn't you hasten to reassure your friends on that point?"

"It was not necessary," Brian said, with as much dignity as he could manage. "Everyone remembered having some contact with you. Elisabeth mentioned serving you quiche."

"Yes," Wesley said, looking obnoxiously amused. "It was rather good quiche. She said Andrew had made it for the wedding."

"He made far too much of it," Brian said, ignoring the reference, "and I've got two of them in my freezer right now, and you're still missing the point."

"Which is...?"

"_Which is_, that if we lot in Oxford are going to have you for an ally, we can't afford to be blindsided by shit like this."

Wesley took in a long breath and let it go in a sigh. "Right. Of course. I do beg your pardon."

Brian folded his arms, shoulders high. "Not good enough," he said evenly.

To his inward surprise, he found that he could bear it easily when Wesley gave him a long grave look. "Then what would be sufficient?" Wesley asked.

"The truth," Brian said.

There was a silence, and then Wesley nodded. "The truth is," he said simply, "I was killed that day. And then the next thing that happened was that I woke up in a down-at-heel boardinghouse in Manchester."

"In Manchester?" It was Brian's turn to be amused. His hometown was a lot of things, but a likely vestibule for resurrections was not one of them. If this was a lie it was not a very good one. Brian suddenly remembered Wesley's look of startlement when Brian told him where he was from. No, not a lie.

"And now I can't even get back there."

"You mean --"

"I mean I can't find the place. Not the house, and not the street."

"What street?"

"It was called Blythgate."

Brian cocked his head to stare at him. "Blythgate. Good Lord. That street was destroyed in the Blitz. It doesn't exist anymore. It's all industrial parks now."

"So I found out," Wesley said grimly. "In any case, my memory was very weak when I woke up, and it wasn't till later I remembered being killed. I've been spending the last month attempting to put things together." He sighed. "That's why I've been cruising the globe -- I'm trying to find someone, anyone, who can explain to me why I'm back here and who's responsible."

"So you don't," Brian said dryly, "think whoever it was was just doing you a favor."

Wesley snorted. "With my luck? And whoever it was could have kept his favor to himself. I was finished," he said, the bitterness rising in his voice, "and now apparently for no reason at all, I'm not." As Brian watched, a look of chagrin crossed his face and his expression closed again. He lifted his chin and regarded Brian calmly, waiting.

Brian thought of what Buffy had said, about the disorientation of being resurrected, and the vulnerability. He said carefully, "So Wolfram &amp; Hart didn't bring you back to keep the terms of an evil contract?"

"What evil contract?" Wesley said.

"You didn't put your signature to -- ?"

"I put my signature to any number of -- ...well, there's another for the list of worries." Wesley threw up his hand vaguely. "I don't remember. I don't -- " He sighed. "I don't know." And this time the controlled expression was not enough to mask the miserable weariness in his face.

A small silence fell. Brian didn't know how to break it. Finally Wesley drew a long breath and looked at him directly.

"You've been thinking I might be evil." It was a quiet statement of fact.

"Yes," Brian said. "Can you prove you're not?"

Wesley regarded him silently for a moment and then shook his head.

Well, that was that then. _He can't be trusted_, Buffy had said regretfully. He had played fast and loose with their trust, lied to them by omission, and now had very little to say for himself. By rights the alliance should be over; and Wesley's own best theory was that he didn't _know_ if his return was for evil.

But standing there looking at him, Brian couldn't bring himself to subscribe to that conclusion. He knew, suddenly and without wavering, that he didn't want to. The thought brought him a sudden relief. _I am going to regret this ten times over_, he thought almost cheerfully.

Before he could speak, however, Wesley let out a long sigh. "Perhaps I'd better clear out of this," he said.

"Who said anything about clearing out?" Brian said indignantly. "Sit down and rest." He gestured behind Wesley at the dining table, half-cleared of papers.

Wesley lifted his gaze to stare at him, without response. Brian made an impatient, wide-eyed gesture, and slowly he moved to obey.

"Have you had supper?" Brian asked.

"No," Wesley said, sinking into the chair with a faint groan.

"I've got some chops left from mine I could heat up, if you'd like."

Wesley turned to give him an assessing frown.

"Eat first," Brian said, "talk second. All else is negotiable."

They looked at one another. Finally a faint, unforced smile came to Wesley's face.

"Sounds fair," he said. "Thank you."

*

Brian put in front of him a plate of chops and stuffing, a bottle of beer, a glass and a churchkey, then plopped himself down across the table with his own bottle sans glass. For a while he forbore to ask Wesley any questions, merely watched him eat, which he did with absorbed attention and quick movements. He seemed not to be put off by the intent frown with which Brian studied him; whether he simply didn't notice, didn't mind, or didn't care, Brian couldn't tell.

Wesley did not begin to slow down till he had eaten nearly everything on the plate. He looked less pale for having eaten, and his eyes less glazed. Brian said: "So. Where were you this time?"

Wesley's fork hand paused over the last bite, and he looked up briefly. "Cairo."

"What's in Cairo?" Brian asked, patiently.

"A Watcher with a collection of research on prophecies."

"Find anything?"

Wesley shook his head and reached for the last swallow of beer.

Brian hesitated over the question, but then asked it anyway. "Is there any way I can help?"

That got the man's attention. He put down the glass and stared at him as if stricken. A long silence passed, and then he said slowly: "I'm not sure that's an offer you should be making."

"My call, isn't it?" Brian took a swig from the bottle, keeping an eye on his face.

Wesley cast his eyes down. He said nothing for a long moment, and Brian let the silence go on.

Quietly Wesley said: "I know whom I ought to be asking for help. But I'd rather do almost anything else."

Brian waited.

"She didn't come."

"Who?" Brian asked.

"Willow. She didn't come when -- when we needed her. What I lost that day -- it was worse than dying, and none of you --" he lifted his head to glare into Brian's face -- "none of you lifted a finger. I'd sooner cut my own throat than ask Willow to find out who brought me back."

Brian absorbed this for a moment. "But you'd share your information."

"Of course," Wesley said. "That's business."

"Your death could be, too."

Wesley began to shake his head, and Brian added, "It's more or less the only option at this point. Now that the cat is out of the bag, Rupert and the others are already involved, so you may as well call it a case and lay it out for them. Unless you're going to tell them hands off, and I imagine you know how that would play."

"I could walk away," Wesley said.

"You could --" Brian looked at him shrewdly -- "but you're not going to."

"How d'you know that?"

Brian shrugged. "What you said just now about us abandoning you. You held that back the last time we met."

Their eyes met on it, and Wesley said: "I could be telling you so that you'd understand why --"

"-- why you said 'Fuck you all!' and stormed off into the sunset? It'd be good theatre," Brian said, "but I don't think you've got that kind of time."

Wesley didn't answer, but he didn't need to. He sat back in his chair and sighed.

Brian was struck by a sudden thought. "So why _did_ you show up at my door this evening? You were going to ask me something. What was it, if it wasn't for help on research?"

A little color came into Wesley's face. He said, "I was going to ask you if I could crash here tonight. I got to Oxford late, and couldn't face another hotel room." He looked over at Brian ruefully. "If I'd been thinking more clearly I might have realized how awkward a request it might be."

He looked as though he was thinking quite clearly now. Brian said, "So...I take it you don't make a general habit of sleeping with the people you're cultivating?"

Wesley groaned. "I wouldn't say that. In fact," he said, coloring deeper, "this is rather par for the course, for me."

He looked up to catch Brian's reaction, but Brian was already laughing. He lay back and laughed hard and long, one arm over the back of his chair, and the last constraints of his embarrassment fell away. "Is that so?" he managed finally, wiping his eyes.

He'd drawn a smile, a sheepish one, from the other man. "Rather," he said. "I do hope there's no lasting ill --"

"Oh for God's sake, Pryce," Brian said giddily, "lighten up. You've put an end to the worst bloody drought I've ever experienced, and for that, I thank you." He sketched him a vague salute and stretched to his feet. "Have you got enough to eat?"

Wesley looked down at his empty plate. "Yes. Thank you."

"Don't mention it." Brian took the plate into the kitchen and turned on the tap to wash it.

"There's one way you can help me," Wesley said from his chair.

"Yeah?"

"Advise me how to handle Giles."

Brian couldn't help it. He started laughing again. "Seriously?"

"You can't be worse than I am at dealing with him."

"Oh, so you too have picked a fistfight with him in a dignified Oxford bookstore?"

"Sounds like fun. Who won?"

"You have to ask?" Brian said. "I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll ring up Pyke's Lea and let them know you're back in town, and _probably_ not evil." Wesley gave a short, dry laugh. Brian continued, "And then tomorrow when you speak with Rupert you can tell him the simple truth: that you've been working this case on your own behalf and preferred to do your own legwork, but would appreciate any helpful information he came across."

"Perhaps I should offer to pay him."

"Perhaps you should offer a good-faith trade in kind. You know there's been some trouble in Japan."

"No, I didn't know."

"Well, I'll let Rupert tell you about it." Brian flipped the dishtowel out of its ring and dried Wesley's plate, then added it to the stack on the shelf. "That's my advice. Shall I wash your glass, or do you want more beer?"

For answer Wesley got up and brought him the glass, then put his backside against the counter and watched Brian wash it. It seemed odd that it had never happened before; it felt to Brian as if they had stood there many times, talking and washing dishes.

"If you're staying here," Brian said, shooting a look at him, "you can take your jacket off, you know."

"So I am staying here?" Wesley shrugged out of the jacket and draped it round the back of his chair.

"If you'd like." Brian upended the glass and set it in the drainer.

"It doesn't put you out?"

Brian snorted comfortably, rinsing the soap off Wesley's silverware. "I think I'm all right. I seem to have graduated from taking home the undead to taking home the merely dead."

Wesley laughed, a highly gratifying sound. "There's a story there."

"A tale of great ignominy," Brian said. "Perhaps next time I'll catch an honest-to-God live one."

"I'm not dead _now_," Wesley said, causing Brian to give him an appraising sidelong glance as he turned off the tap and dried his hands.

"No," he said slowly, "but you're also not drunk now. And neither am I."

Wesley said, his voice once again light, "I imagine that would actually improve the experience."

Brian turned to stare at him, and Wesley lifted his chin in an expression Brian was beginning to be able to read. Talk about courting regrets, he thought -- but that was exactly what he was doing. Brian said, with a coolness he did not feel: "Would it indeed? How so?"

"Well, as how for example one would actually be able to remember it."

"What makes you think I'd want to?" Brian said.

"Instinct," Wesley said.

The tired look had gone out of Wesley's face, and in its place was an unexpected light of mischief. Suddenly Brian found himself grinning like an idiot. "That," he said, "is the most ridiculous come-on I've ever heard."

"You expect better from a dead man?"

"You said you weren't dead anymore." By this time Brian was sandwiched snugly between Wesley and the counter. He put his hands on Wesley's arms, balanced precisely between steadying him close and holding him away.

"I also said my recovery was slow," Wesley said.

"Right," Brian said skeptically. "And yet you've just managed to proposition me in my own home without so much as a by-your-leave. You've got an amazing amount of gall, Pryce."

"I'm following my nose," Wesley said, leaning close.

"Oh, is that what you call it." Brian paused to allow for a short, enticing kiss. "Forgive me for not being _au fait_ with Watcher jargon."

Wesley laughed suddenly. And he was right, it did sound better unclouded by drink. "You catch up rather quickly," he said, his voice softer and warmer, and Brian grinned again.

"You could," he said, "at least give _me_ a turn at being the seducer. I'm actually rather good at it, you have no idea. Though," he added thoughtfully, "my recent drought rather argues against that. Perhaps I've lost my touch. In any case I could certainly use the practice. Perhaps you'd be willing to -- "

"Whitaker," Wesley said, "you talk too much."

"So I have been told," Brian murmured. "There seems nothing to be done about it."

Except for one thing, which Wesley promptly did. He was not a bad kisser, a part of Brian noted clinically, though if he loosened up a bit he'd be less portentously earnest. That wouldn't be too difficult to accomplish, with a little effort on Brian's part. Before Brian could decide if the effort was worth making, he was already making it; damn his warm-blooded nature and the bloody drought. However, this was one arena where he could consider himself the other man's absolute equal; and perhaps that was what Wesley had been going for. Instinct, Brian thought. He kissed Wesley back.

From there matters progressed rather straightforwardly. Brian's shirttails were out of his corduroys and he'd messed Wesley's hair up good and proper, and oh, yes, that was the thing he'd forgotten: how good the man smelled under the travel stains and the dust. A wonder that hadn't occurred to him back when he was trying to recall why exactly he'd taken Wesley to bed, he must have been drunker than he'd thought to forget, or no, being frightened and upset would do the trick just fine, damn it -- yes, Wesley owed him a concession or two, just as soon as he could think of something appropriate --

His trousers seemed to be down around his ankles, and Wesley had stopped kissing him. "What's to do?" Brian said, muzzily.

Wesley gave him a quizzical look, his eyes bright. "You _have_ had a drought, haven't you?"

"Shut up," Brian said.

Wesley grinned. "You sounded very Lancashire just then."

"Well, no bloody wonder -- you've got me all worked up."

Wesley looked down. "I can see that. Excellent." He sank down gracefully to eye level with Brian's waist.

"What are you --" But it was obvious what he was about to do. Concessions, hell. He hadn't thought Wesley would actually _go to church_ on him. That was Brian's last coherent thought. The next moment he was gripping the counter behind him and trying to snatch a breath.

He was distilled together and drawn up into the finest exquisite point, like a needle drawing thread; and then Wesley took his mouth away, and he was exquisitely suffering.

He opened his eyes to look down. Wesley was looking wickedly up into his face.

"Is this something you'd like to remember?" he said softly.

Brian closed his eyes, surrendering. "Yes," he said.

*

Later, stretched contentedly on his bed, Brian said, "_Where_ did you learn to do that?"

Wesley yawned beside him. "Do what? Oh. Yes. Various places." A faint echo of that wicked smile crossed his face.

Brian gave him a long look. "Don't tell me it's part of the standard curriculum at the Watchers' Academy."

Wesley grinned with his eyes closed. "Well, not officially. How do you think I got to be Head Boy?"

Brian put an arm over his eyes and groaned. "Are you sure it wasn't due to your other talents?"

"If you talk to any other Watchers," Wesley said dryly, "they'll tell you I was a very substandard product of the tradition."

"Oh, I don't know," Brian said. "You look like having all the earmarks of a proper Watcher to me. If Rupert and his pal Robson are any indication."

"Oh? And how's that?"

"Punctilious," Brian said. "Dangerous. And a little cracked."

"Thank you."

"Not to mention," Brian added, "an uncanny ability to cheat death."

"Ha," Wesley said.

"I suppose they teach you all that...." Suddenly Brian raised his head, his eyes lighting with mischief. "I say --"

Wesley read his mind. "Alas. I have no information on that point."

"Damn." Brian lay back down. "Well, he wasn't Head Boy, anyway."

"Giles? Don't make me laugh. The most notorious scapegrace the Academy ever produced. And he's gotten ever more insufferable since."

"But he's still alive."

"Yes. I suppose one never knows. I think half the Council were miffed he lasted more than a year at the Hellmouth."

"And you?"

"Oh, I got sacked. And you know what that leads to in California."

"No, what?"

"Leather pants and demon karaoke."

Brian laughed, as Wesley had meant him to. Then he fell into a reverie. "I suppose that isn't actually something one can teach. How to stay alive, I mean. You have to be a bit lucky, looks like. And pull things you didn't know you had out of the subconscious...Wesley?"

"So sorry," Wesley murmured. "Can't stay awake."

"Well, you'd better get under the covers, then," Brian said, sitting up and tugging sheets out from beneath them. He wound up getting out of bed altogether and tucking Wesley in. Then he shook himself and went to take a thoughtful shower.

When he came out, belting his robe around him, Wesley was heavily asleep, curled over with his face half buried at the bottom of a pillow. Brian took no care to be quiet getting his pajamas out of their drawer, but he didn't stir. Good.

He picked up their clothing from the floor, put his in the laundry basket and folded Wesley's over a chair. Then he took his mobile and retreated to the dining alcove.

"Brian," Elisabeth said, sounding both pleased and tired.

"Hello. Hope I didn't disturb you."

"No, it's all right. What's up?"

Brian had had to get used to the American connotation of that query. "Just thought I'd give you the heads-up. Pryce is back in town. He wants to meet with Rupert tomorrow."

A brief silence, then Elisabeth said: "You talked with him?"

There was a world of answer to that question. "Yes," Brian said.

"So where is he now?"

"He's asleep," Brian said, casting a glance across the room to make sure it was true.

"You're letting him stay there?" Her voice had risen, but before he could reply, she added, "He must have been convincing."

Brian sighed. "He says he can't prove he's not evil. I don't suppose that's -- "

"Surprising?" Elisabeth said dryly, and gave a sigh of her own. "I was in that position once, in Sunnydale."

She had been in that position a lot more recently than that. "It's hard to navigate," he said cautiously, not wanting to tread that ice.

"Yes," she agreed. "But I trust your instincts. You think he's all right?"

"Well, he's not going to harm me tonight," Brian said. "But I'm not sure I'd place too much weight on my instincts." After all, his instincts had spent most of the evening wildly gesturing at the southern half of his body. But Brian wasn't about to tell Elisabeth _that_.

"Well, I'm sure Rupert will want to hear the story from him himself. But tell me what he said. Was he really killed in L.A.?"

Brian slouched back in his chair and stretched out his feet. "Apparently so."

*

Early the next afternoon Wesley sat alone in a booth at Brian's and Giles's favorite pub, waiting for Giles. He had ordered a shepherd's pie, but his appetite had failed him and he sat picking at it moodily, staring out the window at the high grey of the overcast sky. The humidity was killing; Cairo had been far easier to take. For one thing, people knew how to dress for the weather down there.

His mind kept returning to the night before, to the thing -- to the numerous things -- that had happened and turned everything upside down, again. After he'd fallen asleep in Brian's bed, the other man's low voice had waked him some time later; without opening his eyes Wesley had listened as Brian spoke in reassuring tones to -- he presumed -- Giles's wife. "Well, he's not going to harm me tonight," Brian had said, one of the few things Wesley heard and remembered clearly. He had spoken with more conviction than Wesley himself felt. He was extremely talented at harming the very people he -- had goodwill for.

He had drifted back asleep then, and woke again more confused. It was darker in the flat and he struggled for a moment, taking care to keep perfectly still, to remember where he was. He opened his eyes. The only lights in the flat were the light over the cooktop in the kitchen and a small gooseneck lamp on the dining table. At the table sat Brian in his robe and pajamas, with his reading glasses on his nose and a pen in his hand. As he watched, Brian turned over a leaf in a stapled set of papers and made a small note with his pen; and Wesley realized what he was doing: he was dealing with the student essays that had sat piled on the table. The shadows cast by the lamp were soft on his long face and shallow cheekbones, and his expression was calm.

It was such a secure image that Wesley had been waked afresh to all that he had lost. But this time the taste in his mouth was less bitter. Brian, and his place in this world, had been unexpectedly hospitable to him; like Dennison's cup of tea, and the winds of Malta, this could give him no real comfort but at least it was a connection, with a pulse and a breath.

After a while Brian tossed down the pen, shoved aside the papers, and pulled off his glasses to drop to the table after them. He stood and stretched achingly, shrugged out of his robe and dropped it over Wesley's jacket on the back of the chair, and stretched again, with the heels of his hands hard forward. His pajamas, Wesley realized suddenly, had trains on them. He couldn't quite stifle a smile, and an accompanying poignant pain passed through him.

Shortly thereafter the lights were out and Brian was getting into bed beside him. Wesley had given him no sign he was awake; nevertheless, when he'd settled down he murmured clearly: "All right?" It took a brief second for Wesley to realize that Brian was actually talking to him.

"Yes," he said automatically, though he was far from certain whether he was actually all right.

A silence passed, so long that Brian might well have fallen asleep, before Wesley spoke again, quiet in the dark. "I envy you, you know," he said. "Your place in the world."

"It's a shame, then, isn't it," Brian answered, "that I haven't properly appreciated it."

He sounded truly repentant. What would it be like, Wesley wondered, to respond to things at once and freely, without second-guessing every detail and emotion? He struggled with this thought a moment and then said, "Is that why you're not afraid I'll harm you?"

He felt the other man go still for a moment. Then Brian said, "I believe you know better than to try and destroy what you can't have." There was a private unhappiness in his voice, a small ache of regret. "Still, it only proves you can lose anything, can't you."

Perhaps it was this that made Wesley say suddenly, "Do you know what Vail was known for?"

"No."

"He was skilled at altering the fabric of reality to camouflage things. He hid Angel's son from the whole world, even from the people who were changed forever dealing with him. People died, and we never remembered to ask why." The suffocating fear rose briefly in him again. He breathed it down and went on, slowly, knowing full well he was about to regret the exposure. "I suppose he's dead. I suppose Illyria took care of him for me. But I have no idea whether my being back here is an alteration or a restoration. I don't know if there's something missing I should notice. I don't know if it's possible for me to notice." He swallowed. "I don't know anything."

He waited, for Brian to offer him some paltry reassurance, or to say nothing at all and go to sleep. There was a brief silence and then Brian said: "That's rather frightening." Simple words, spoken as if he shared the fear without suffering from it. Wesley could have cried, or destroyed something, or lost his breath to panic.

He said, "Yes."

Another long silence passed; then Brian said sleepily, "All right then?"

He was asking, Wesley realized, if he needed to keep awake to help him. "Good night," Wesley answered. His own voice sounded inexplicably calm.

"Night." Brian had fallen asleep almost at once. Shortly after that, Wesley followed.

*

It was too late to go down with the ship. That was the problem, and his body had recognized it long before his mind had: while he was still thinking it would be a terrible idea to involve someone intimately in his apocalyptically bad karma, his hands and his mouth had reached for a man he'd just met. Bad, bad idea. But it was too late. Life was coming back to him like blood to a numb limb, and he didn't even mind that it hurt like hell. He was trying to resent, or at least ignore, the fact that it was inevitably going to disarrange all his thinking too, but he suspected this would have equally little success. Hopelessly fragmented, self-preoccupied, ignominious and cerebral, as he always had been, and he couldn't even care now, because Brian Whitaker had laughed at him. And then kissed him; and it was too late to go down with the ship.

He heard a familiar step; without moving, he waited, and Rupert Giles slid into the booth seat across from him. His movements were tired, but not anxious; reluctantly, Wesley lifted his gaze to get a look at his face.

No anger. No rejection, no mournful disappointment, not even any wary suspicion; and no pity either. Giles sat calmly with his hands on the table in full view and looked at him, taking him in soberly. Wesley didn't know what could be read on his own face; he supposed it didn't matter. He had long been accustomed to thinking of Giles as a hypocrite, which had chafed against his uneasy feeling that Giles might be right to think himself superior; but all of that, too, he realized now, had been lost to him. They sat together at a battered pub table as if in a suspended moment at the center of a compass, looking one another in the face.

Finally Giles cleared his throat softly and spoke. "I put a call in to Dennison this morning." A brief smile crossed his face. "He refused to speak to me about you, but he did allow that he'd taken a meeting with you. So that's one point in your favor. Elisabeth tells me Brian said you were in Cairo. Did you go to see Gillsworth?"

"Yes," Wesley said.

"What did she say?"

Wesley was stirred to a dry smile. "She said a lot of very discomfiting things about my family, my character, and my inability to handle kindness. But her archive proved rather disappointing."

Giles raised an eyebrow, but otherwise said nothing. But somehow, Wesley had the impression that Giles was impressed.

Wesley asked, "What do you do when you discover a Slayer? Do you remove her?"

Giles shook his head. "Not except as a last resort in an emergency. We offer assistance -- information, financial resources -- when we can. We try to send someone to the location, but we've been stretched rather thin. We've collected a number of Slayers for training retreats, on a few occasions so far this past year." His hazel eyes were frank. "It's not enough, of course. It's a good thing Slayers tend to be naturally resourceful people."

Wesley thought of Faith; thought of Sister Melita. He smiled faintly. "You should call Gillsworth."

"I'll do that," Giles said. Then his gaze sharpened. "What are your intentions?"

That cut to the chase pretty cleanly. Wesley answered in kind. "I intend to keep up my researches on my own behalf; and whatever I find out along the way I'm content to share with you."

This seemed to cause Giles no surprise. He asked, "Do you want our assistance?"

Wesley couldn't help a small twitch of movement, as if to physically push the offer away, but the urge dissipated on its own. "Want, no. Need, perhaps eventually. I'll have to think about it."

Giles nodded. He hadn't taken offense, but then, Wesley hadn't offered him any. Brian might have overstated the need for diplomacy, but he'd been right about the simple truth bit -- or no, it was entirely possible that the diplomacy part had been taken care of when Brian called Elisabeth. Or when Giles had fully evaluated the information from Robson. Wesley wondered what Robson had told him, other than what Brian had related.

After a small silence, Giles hesitated and then said: "I am sorry for your loss."

Had Giles spoken them at any point before now, those words would have produced in Wesley an uncontrollably murderous urge. Now, he cast his gaze down to his own hands, which had come to rest at the edge of the table, and let the silence acknowledge them as spoken.

Giles reached into the breast pocket of his jacket and drew out a card and a pen. On the back of the card he wrote in his crabbed left-handed script a long string of numbers and a Japanese name. Then he put the pen away and stood up.

"If you see your way to it," he said, pushing the card across the table to him, "we could use some extra information about the situation in Japan. This is the number where you can reach Faith. The name is the man who has been translating for her to take messages. I understand she's in Kyoto, but that may have changed."

Wesley looked at the card without touching it. Then he looked up at Giles where he stood at the side of the table.

"If you see your way to it," Giles repeated gently; and went away.

Wesley stared at the card a long time. Then he picked it up and buttoned it carefully into his shirt pocket.

*

He sat in a reverie for a very long time, then stirred himself and ate nearly all the shepherd's pie, though it had grown cold. He finished off his pint and stood up. According to his watch, he still had an hour to kill before he needed to get to the airport for his flight to Budapest.

As he threaded his way through chattering students and arguing locals, he realized that one of the voices at the bar was a clear, warm tenor that he recognized. He looked, just as Brian half-turned from the bar and saw him.

"Good Lord!" he said, blinking sharply. "I thought you'd gone already." He could hardly be blamed for thinking that, Wesley reflected: early in the morning Wesley had been up, showered, and out before Brian had turned over twice. Wesley suspected that Brian was not a quick riser, either drunk or sober.

Beyond him, Elisabeth Bowen leaned away from the bar and regarded him with an identical look of surprise. Unlike Giles, she showed a faint edge of concern beneath her expression, and he felt again the unease and slight irritation at remembering her background.

"I have a bit of time yet before my flight goes," Wesley explained.

"Well, join us and have lunch," Elisabeth said, with a gesture at her ploughman's and water glass.

"Already eaten," Wesley said, with only half-feigned regret.

"Then have a drink," Brian said. His hospitality, it seemed, stretched beyond his own flat: his lanky form was draped along the bar as if it were his own, his scuffed shoes hooked on the rungs of his stool, and his grin was not merely mischievous but appreciative, as if Wesley were an old friend.

Wesley smiled back. "I couldn't possibly interrupt."

"Nonsense," Elisabeth said, and at the same time Brian said, "We were only hashing over the latest on Elisabeth's paper that she's presenting next month. We can do that any time."

"Oh, and I didn't tell you the worst of it when Bevis buttonholed me in the hallway," Elisabeth said to Brian, including Wesley with a glance. "He went on and on about the Blake section and how to make it 'more complete' -- including a suggestion that I explore in detail the idea of Blake's imagery of God being consonant with images of worship of the phallus."

Wesley flushed a little.

Brian said fervently, "'Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new!'"

With an effort Wesley turned a laugh into a cough, and choked on it. Elisabeth gave a deprecating sigh.

"What, d'you think Augustine would disapprove?"

"I think Augustine would egg you on," Elisabeth retorted, "so it's a good thing he's not here. I told Bevis that'd have to wait for the next paper, but really I meant it'll be a cold day in hell. Phallus worship in Blake! That's not a paper, that's more like a 'duh!' -- Stop _grinning_ like that. Honestly, Brian, you're such a _boy_ sometimes. And don't think I haven't noticed _you_ \--" She pointed at Wesley, giving him an amiable glare. Wesley sucked his lips in and looked carefully at his feet.

"I am as God made me," Brian said solemnly.

"Yes, you are." Elisabeth laid a teasing affectionate hand along his cheek and gave him a motherly moue.

"'You touched me, and I burned for your --'"

"That's quite enough of that." Elisabeth took her hand away, but she was smiling openly now. "Do have a drink with us, Wesley. And consider yourself invited to the presentation. It's my first one, you know, so I'm anxious to show off." She turned her smile on him full strength, looking for all the world like the Empress, perched on her stool with her round belly and squared-rim glasses. She and Brian, he realized, were a matched set; friends by affinity, the scholar with her bookish looks and the don with his rolled-up sleeves and tie askew. And they were both looking at him as if he belonged with them.

Wesley thought that he would like to stay, would like to indulge the sensation of enjoying another life arguing with dons and scholars about literature in a university-town pub; but he was already shaking his head. "Another time. When is your presentation?"

"September fifteenth. At three in the afternoon."

"In Magdalen?"

"Yes."

"I'll come," Wesley said. "It sounds like an interesting paper."

Brian heard the faint mischief in his tone and snorted generously.

"When do you think you'll be back?" Elisabeth asked. The concern had returned to her face, but this time it occurred to Wesley that concern _for_ him and concern _about_ him might not actually be the same in effect.

He shook his head. "I don't know. Probably not too long. Likely before you give your paper. I'll see you all soon, then, shall I?"

They took leave of him, Brian with a very dry smile, and Wesley escaped out of the pub into the sticky summer air. "Out of the frying pan into the fire," he said to himself, with no particular meaning, and set off at a steady pace toward the train station.

*

Brian stepped out of the pub that afternoon, leaving Elisabeth behind to wait for Rupert, and ran (not literally) into Anne Langland, who was coming along the pavement. She was wearing her collar, so she must have been out on pastoral visits, he thought, and the thought made him blush and duck his head as he greeted her. If she knew what he'd been up to recently --

And his face must have been transparent in its expression, because she immediately gave him that wry wise smile of hers. "Do I even want to know?" she said.

Brian opened his mouth, then shut it, and shook his head. Knowing Anne, she'd have the whole thing deduced before she got home anyway. At some point he was going to have to get used to being friends with a priest who, despite being his own age, could turn anybody, Rupert Giles included, inside out with half a glance. Any day now he'd start work on that.

"Is it something Elisabeth knows about?"

"Oh God no," Brian said at once, blushing even harder. Maybe someday he would confess his indiscretions to Elisabeth, but _not_ any time in the near future. For one thing, it would be hard to explain scratching one's itch with a man of uncertain loyalties who'd been recently dead, even if he _was_ monstrously fellatially talented. And for another, if the itch _was_ scratched, it would quickly become an irrelevancy to the business ahead.

"I won't mention it to her then," Anne said, still smiling.

"Thank you," Brian said. "It would save me some chagrin." He grinned crookedly at her to show her it wasn't a case for worry, and Anne laughed.

"Love to stay and chat," he went on, "but I really must fly. If Elisabeth starts in about me and St. Augustine, you know what _not_ to do. Auf wiedersehen! Toodles!"

He ducked past her and made his escape. Behind him as he strode toward Magdalen, he heard Anne still chuckling. Good; he'd left her amused instead of concerned. That meant there was nothing to be concerned about.

Right. Brian rolled his eyes at his own _petitio_. Good sex is no excuse for sloppy thinking, he told himself.

But it wasn't good sex he was thinking about as he got back to his rooms and settled down to work: he was thinking about Wesley in the air en route to -- he'd forgotten to ask where, and he'd forgotten to ask what. How did one research one's own resurrection, anyway? Brian opened his laptop and called up an old survey map of Manchester. Why Manchester? he thought, staring at the markings for Blythgate, which no longer existed. Come to that, why England? Wesley'd been heavily engaged in Los Angeles; one would think he'd have been returned somewhere in the States at least. Unless whoever was responsible agreed that Wesley's work there was done. So either there was some other work in store for Wesley to do -- or he had just been dumped back in the country of his birth to start over. Without assistance, it seemed, either material or informational. It seemed rather cruel to Brian, even if the act had been a benevolent one, which Wesley clearly didn't believe. A couple of years' worth of truck with cosmic powers, Brian thought, would easily result in becoming a pawn of the gods, and even the nice ones were ruthless.

The obvious thing to do was to call Buffy. But if he'd thought she'd be upset by his taking Wesley to bed _once_...he couldn't afford to have her get the whole thing out of him, which she would, which Anne nearly had with one look, which Elisabeth would have done long since if she hadn't been so distracted with the paper and the baby and the First.

He was still amazed she hadn't figured it out on the phone last night, but then, no one, Brian himself included, had thought of him as the sleeping-with-the-maybe-an-enemy type. Still, she had come as close as platonic interpretation would allow. When he'd carefully explained that the purpose of Wesley's travels was to find the reason for his return, she'd said: "He's one of yours, now, isn't he?" "One of my what?" Brian had said, irritably. "People, Brian," she'd said. "He's one of the people you look out for now."

"What rubbish," Brian had said, with a glance over at Wesley asleep in his bed. But she was right. And he knew she was right, because never had he felt more acutely the dangers of putting his oar in even as he wanted to do it anyway. Because even if Buffy were to accept the idea of Brian fostering one of Angel's people, there was Wesley himself to consider. Wesley had made it moderately clear that his dignity as a free agent was the one thing he'd refuse to put on the bargaining table, and one quick way for Brian to lose Wesley's trust would be to undercut that dignity.

Sleeping dogs, Brian thought. Rupert would call Buffy; no need for him to put his oar in. Yet.

With an air of determination, Brian shut down his laptop and took up the first book on his stack.


	4. Rue de Talleyrand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Wesley turns off Radio KFKD, Brian gets out the first-aid kit, Elisabeth channels Lionel Tribbey, and Rupert fails to pay attention.

The demon picked Wesley up with one taloned fist and smashed him against the ditch wall, grinding him well in against the ancient stones. Then it let him drop. He rolled (which hurt) and hurtled to his feet (which also hurt), and lunged across the ditch for his short pawnshop sword (which really hurt). There was one place a man could hurt this demon, which fortunately was in back of it under the shoulderblade; unfortunately, the said shoulderblade was seven feet from the ground, and the demon's height was too much of an advantage. If he could get out of the ditch quickly enough --

He ducked another grab, the edge of his sword ringing against the great thumb talon, and eyed an unevenness in the wall's bricks several yards down; if he came at it fast enough he could use them more like a stair than a ladder: the sort of move Connor would make look easy, if he were here. But no, it was just Wesley, the demon, and the ditch. At least no one but the demon would see him look foolish if he failed.

He ran under the demon's arm and picked up speed for the wall, splashing hard through the dirty water at the ditch's bottom. He was within reach of the first stone when his boot found a missing paving stone and hooked his balance from under him, and he fell headlong against the ditch wall, just missing smashing into it nose first, and crumpled against it with his shoulder taking the brunt. For a moment he was in too much pain even to draw breath, and then the demon had grabbed him up again. Blindly, Wesley slashed down at its face with the sword. The demon screamed in pain and rage, and its grip fell away. Wesley threw his weight forward to fall onto the demon's back in an awkward somersault, and as it dropped to all fours, flailed wildly with his left hand for a grip. He found the demon's shoulder, slithered round till he was behind it with one arm round its neck, and struggled for an angle to strike with the sword. First try, he hit air. The demon bucked and nearly threw him off. Second try, he cut the back of the demon's elbow; enraged, the demon reached back with talons outspread, and desperately Wesley stabbed a third time.

This time he hit the soft place, obliquely, and as the demon screamed he let go of its neck and pushed himself back to angle in the blade. As it fell forward, dying, he jumped backward off its back, missed his footing and lost hold of the sword, reeled backward several steps, and wound up in a splashing pratfall on his back in the water.

He listened to the death rattle of the demon, trying to breathe himself, and reflected sourly on his fate. "I could be in a peaceful grave right now," he said when he had air enough to whisper. Now that he knew he didn't actually want to be dead, he felt obscurely that it was his right to complain thoroughly about living. "Instead, I'm lying in two inches of filthy water, I'm cold, I'm tired, and I almost got killed by a half-grown Budapest sewer demon." The sky above was clouded and reflected back the grey-orange light of the city. It was probably time to see what getting up was going to be like.

Getting up sucked. Wesley groaned and whimpered till he had at last gained his feet, and there he stood panting. "Pull yourself together, Pryce," he told himself. It was the sort of thing he always told himself at moments like this, but it always seemed to miss the point. In addition, of course, to not working.

But he had never really known what point such self-instruction was missing, and it came upon him now, standing in the muck of the ditch, what it was.

There were always two ways to read himself -- at least two. He was awkward and more than a little ridiculous, falling over his own feet, launching a mattock into an office wall, by turns ruthless and gullible in exactly the wrong moments. Or he was finely skilled in hand weapons, a wizard with languages, a marvelously intuitive problem solver, and he had just singlehandedly killed a Budapest sewer demon. But which?

He had thought his best choice was to read both and try to live with the contradictions. But actually he could forget the whole thing if he wanted. He could finally, finally, fail to care: not the reckless, deathwish sort of not caring which was more than half a pretense, but real not caring, blessedly free not caring about anything except the fact that he was living and breathing. Wesley limped to the uneven stones of the ditch and clambered up and out, swearing between constricted breaths at the pain, which was gathering and concentrating in his side. He was too wet and dirty to tell if he was bleeding, though he probably was.

When he gained the top, he stopped to breathe, holding his side, and looked down at the dirty water and the dead demon. He had killed the demon for the privilege of living long enough to find out why he was back: it seemed he wasn't doing this just so that he could verify he wasn't indentured to evil and then go back to bed, as it were. But if he _was_ indentured to evil, getting killed would put a stop to that...unless he woke up in Manchester again. Wesley briefly imagined himself waking up in that boardinghouse over and over, like the movie, and shuddered. "You don't have one," Sister Melita had said when he asked about his destiny; but he did nevertheless have a mystery to solve. For now, that was sufficient.

Without any more uncertainty, Wesley squelched his way through the back alleys of the city as it waked to grey daylight, till he reached the door he'd knocked on two days and ten hours before. "I've got your tomb rubbing," he said to the man who opened it, pulling a torn and bloodstained sheet of paper from his inside jacket pocket and unfolding it. "I put half of it in the hands of a man who will put it in the post when I call him. Here's the other half. Now I want Dickinson's address and phone number, a shower, and a change of clothes. No more fooling around."

*

Having made his appointment, obtained his change of clothes, and wrapped up his bleeding side as tightly as he could, Wesley told his cab driver in what was probably very bad Hungarian to take him to the train station. He had two days to get to Reims for his rendezvous, which was as close in both time and location as he could negotiate, but meeting Dickinson without an interval for recuperation was perhaps even less ideal. The question, of course, was what to do with the intervening time. Sitting on a train for hours on end bleeding didn't appeal, but it was that or going to a doctor who might clap him in hospital.

Or he could go back to England for a few hours, and then stop on his way to Reims to visit Dr Darien in Paris, who was an old campaigner and knew how to keep a Watcher on his feet. Provided, of course, that Darien was still alive. In England he could get a decent meal and a place to sleep and some first aid. If Whitaker wasn't home, he could go to Giles, which also didn't appeal, but no longer caused him to recoil in horror. However, it would be much better if Whitaker were home.

Wesley began the painstaking process of convincing the cab driver to change course for the airport.

*

Despite his shower and change, the people around him on the plane sniffed and shifted uncomfortably. Wesley didn't apologize; in fact, he felt quite buoyant as the sweltering heat enhanced the bouquet of muck and demon ichor still clinging to him. The amusement of receiving dirty looks had palled, however, by the time his train arrived in Oxford, and he wanted nothing more than to go to ground for eight hours. His side hurt him very much, and he felt covered in blood, though he often checked his shirt for stains and didn't see any. By the time he reached Brian's flat, he considered falling down dead over the threshold when Brian opened the door.

He was home, and opened to Wesley's knock, his face (for once) unreadable. Wesley felt a sudden worry: had something happened again to derail the man's trust?

It must have shown on his face, because Brian smiled suddenly. "No, I'm not about to throw you up against a wall."

Wesley let go the breath he was holding, as far as the constraint of his pain would let him.

Brian tipped his head and raised his eyes in mock consideration. "Although...."

"Please don't," Wesley said. "I've had as much of that as I can stand for the time being."

Brian's smile widened to a grin, and he stepped aside to let Wesley in.

Inside the flat smelled strongly of household cleaner, and there was a large stack of folded laundry on the nearly-empty dining table. The little window-box AC in the sitting area was racketing full volume. "You've been housecleaning," Wesley said.

"Yes, I finally got ahead of my students _and_ my reading, and couldn't bear to look at the place any longer." Brian himself was also clean, though probably even determined effort wouldn't alter his slightly rumpled look, or straighten his perennially-tousled sandy hair. But in comparison with Wesley he was a miracle of neatness and pleasant-scented skin. Wesley's head was turned again, effortlessly; and a little knot untwisted itself inside him. He'd made it home.

"I'm not staying long," he heard himself saying. "I've got to be in France in eighteen hours. But if I could break my journey here --"

"Well, you've missed supper again," Brian said, with half-mocking severity. They looked at one another, and started to laugh.

They were laughing almost without reason, without anchor, as if they had been caught and then released in an eddy of joy; and the natural next thing was to step toward one another and embrace. Wesley hadn't realized how much he'd been longing for the next time Brian kissed him; and he suspected Brian hadn't known it either, because he felt a slight hesitation in the man's touch, as if in startlement, and a renewed enthusiasm, a motion of relief.

Suddenly Brian held him away at the shoulders and broke the kiss.

"Good Lord, Wesley, you smell like a sewer. Where have you been?"

"A sewer," Wesley deadpanned.

A beat of silence, then they started laughing again. It hurt like fire, and Wesley didn't care.

Brian hugged him again, rocking a little, and then tightened his embrace. Wesley flinched hard, but recovered, and sought Brian's mouth again, but Brian eluded him neatly. "Right," he said, looking at him with head tilted back. "Where's the injury?"

Wesley met his eye, gave up evasion as a bad job, and sighed. "I've got some scratches on my ribs. Nothing life-threatening."

"Let's have a look."

Something like this was precisely what he'd come for, but Wesley was very disappointed when Brian let go of him and began herding him toward the dining table. He made a face and a little plaint of a groan.

"Come on. Let's have your shirt off, then." Brian saw him seated in the chair and then disappeared into the bathroom. Acquiescently, Wesley shrugged slowly out of his jacket and began unbuttoning his shirt. There was a sound of rummaging and a hollow bang, and as he was pulling his T-shirt over his head Brian returned with a large plastic toolbox, thumped it onto the table, and unsnapped the clasps.

"That's a rather large first-aid kit," Wesley observed as Brian threw the lid back.

"Elisabeth says everybody in this dimension should keep a proper array of first-aid materials --" he caught sight of the wounds as Wesley, wincing, peeled away the thick dressing -- "and she's right. Fucking hell. That looks vicious." He went into the kitchen and filled a large bowl with hot water from the tap.

Wesley watched him add antiseptic to the water and dip in a clean towel. "I'd better warn you," he said, shamefaced, "I don't have a very high pain threshold."

"Must be a bloody nuisance in your line of work," was all Brian said.

"It is," Wesley said, bracing himself for the sting.

He managed not to cry out while Brian cleaned the dark and drying blood from the gouges left by the demon's talons. Fresh blood rose and beaded along the deeper ones.

"This needs stitches," Brian said.

"Don't have time for that," Wesley grunted.

"Hence my getting out the big fuck-off roll of tape, Pryce," Brian retorted, waving it in his left hand. "I wonder if butterfly bandages would help." He rose from his crouch at Wesley's knee and peered into the kit.

For a moment, Wesley shut his eyes in mere gratitude, but when Brian returned to dressing his wounds with ointment and an assortment of painfully-sticking bandages and gauze, he began to grouse, which served as an equal distraction from pain and self-pity. "Ouch. Don't stick it along there."

"There's no place _to_ stick it but there," Brian said.

"Well it hurts. Bloody manc."

"I'm sure it does. Council-whipped ponce."

Wesley shut his eyes again. "Do you know what I did to the last man who called me a ponce?"

He opened his eyes to see Brian looking up at him with a wide, mischievous grin. "Did it involve a massively brilliant blowjob?"

"No," Wesley said.

*

"There," Brian said at last, fastening a final snip of tape over the roll of gauze round Wesley's ribs. Wesley tried an experimental breath. "All right?"

"Better. Thank you." He looked over at his T-shirt on the table and picked up a corner of it thoughtfully.

"Er," Brian said, "may I suggest a complete change of clothing?"

"This _is_ a complete change of clothing," Wesley said ruefully.

Brian smiled up at him. "Luckily you've come to someone who's the same size. You can wear some things of mine."

His arms were draped over Wesley's knees, and the smile in his face went to Wesley's heart like gold poured from a crucible, precious, pure, and scalding. "Doesn't that depend on this evening's plans?" he said.

"Well," Brian said, "there are some alternate plans for the evening. One is, you can join me on the couch with some sangria and watch television. Or, if you're too tired for that, I can put you to bed now."

Wesley made a face to avoid a smile. "Those are my only options?"

"You should count yourself lucky I discarded the option of taking you straight to hospital. I suspect you have some broken ribs. And you're about to jaunt off to an appointment in Samarra --"

"I said France --"

"-- without benefit of a proper medical opinion."

Wesley gave a longsuffering sigh. "There's a doctor in Paris. He's good at patching up wounded Watchers."

"And you were going to go and see him?" Brian was very good at spotting an evasion, though Wesley was pretty sure Brian was pants at lying himself.

"Yes," Wesley said.

"Right then." Brian braced a hand on Wesley's knee, preparing to stand. "Would you care for a painkiller with a chaser of freshly-made sangria?"

That sounded lovely, actually. "I am in your hands," Wesley said.

Brian rose to his feet, his eyes laughing. "God, you're a cheap date, Pryce. I haven't even plied you with alcohol yet."

"Q. E. D.," Wesley said. "Did you say something about a painkiller?"

*

Wesley dozed through most of an old episode of _Doctor Who_, with his legs in Brian's lap on the tiny couch and condensation gathering on his sangria glass, empty but for ice. Brian had turned down the AC so they could hear the TV, and the room was warm. As the episode ended, Brian turned to him and saw his eyes were open. "Another transfusion?"

Wesley shook his head against the back of the couch. "Thank you."

"I think alcohol is contraindicated for blood loss," Brian said thoughtfully.

"You can see how much I care," Wesley said. Brian had cajoled him into a pair of his pajama-bottoms (with stripes, not trains) and a fresh T-shirt, and now he was deliberating in his mind between the pursuit of sex or sleep.

"I'll take your glass, then." Wesley handed Brian his empty glass and reluctantly withdrew his legs so Brian could get up. He put his feet on the floor and blinked contentedly at the room. He was absurdly, simply happy: and for a moment an adamantine spear of terror lanced through him. If he was happy, he had something to lose.

Brian came back into the room, turned off the television, and stood looking at him where he lay. "Well. Shall we go to bed?"

Wesley put a hand up and let Brian haul him to his feet.

A short time later they were both in bed, the only light in the flat coming from the bedside lamp, the ceiling fan clicking at a quick pace overhead. Brian braced up on his elbow and frowned distantly at Wesley's midriff. "What did this to you?" he said.

"A Budapest sewer demon," Wesley answered. He was about to go on, but Brian said, amused, "There are sewer demons in Budapest?"

"Oh, in nearly every major European city. Not a very high level of sentience, but fairly deadly. The ones in London have spines on their noses and tails. The ones in Paris sometimes disguise themselves as boatmen to catch unsuspecting spelunkers."

Brian shook his head, smiling.

"So," Wesley said, getting back to the point with a wistful look, "do I smell too bad to shag, then?"

"No." Brian moved over to Wesley and braced his hand on the other side of him to look down. "You seem to be reasonably clean. You might, I thought, be too badly hurt to shag, though." Wesley made a face of protest but Brian went on before he could speak. "So I thought the matter through very carefully. And it seems to me there are a number of ways to go about it without aggravating your injury." Wesley snorted into a laugh: this was science indeed. "And it occurred to me particularly --" Brian's diction dropped with a bump -- "that I could learn to do that thing."

"What thing?"

"You know, that thing you did that rendered me totally and absolutely compliant last time? That thing?"

"Oh right," Wesley said with a small grin. "That thing. And you wish me to be a patient for your experiments?"

"You're in my bed, aren't you?"

"Oh, the predicaments I land myself in."

They grinned at each other.

"So then," Wesley said, "what manner of compliance are you hoping to win from me this time?"

"Ah," Brian said. "Now he comes to the point."

"Well, not quite. You haven't touched me yet."

But Brian was serious. "I want you to tell me about Budapest."

Wesley stared at him. "That's all?"

"Wesley," Brian said, "do you realize how little I know about these things? I'm woefully ignorant. And if there's one thing a don hates --"

"I see," Wesley said, and he did. He also saw what Brian did not say, which was that ignorance of that kind put in constant contact with Rupert Giles would make a man liable to be defensive. "Very well."

*

Wesley told him about Budapest: at least, he began the story of his trip there and what he spent time looking for, until Brian's hands and tongue took away his power of speech, and then he didn't pick up the tale again for a while. "Have you really never given one before?" he said at last, stroking the other man's temple with an idle finger.

"Handjobs, yes," Brian said, eyes closed. "Blowjobs, no. Though I was well aware of the theory."

"Evidently."

"So --" Brian prompted him -- "you went to look for the tomb for him."

Wesley smiled. "Yes. I found the tomb and got a rubbing of the inscription. And I figured that I'd better get myself some insurance against double-crossing, so I tore the thing in half and -- oh that reminds me, I've a favor to ask you."

"Yes?"

"I put the other half in the post to you. And I told him I'd given it to a man who would send it to him once I'd given him the all-clear. So, when it comes in your post, would you --"

"Post it back? Of course."

"Better do it in London if you can," Wesley said. "That postmark would be more anonymous."

"I will."

"It was a good thing I did do that," Wesley added. "I don't think the sewer demon was an accident."

"Shit," Brian said.

"Yes. Took forever to get it out of my right ear."

"Ha!" Brian opened his eyes. "I don't think you _did_ get it all out. I'm pretty sure that's where the smell is coming from."

"Well, thank the gods it's not coming from my --" They both dissolved into giggles like schoolboys.

"So what now?" Brian asked, when he had stripped off his own pajamas and pulled the sheet over them both.

"Now, I put my hands on _you_, Whitaker. That's usually how this sort of exchange works." Wesley stroked him teasingly.

Brian replied in kind. "Not that, idiot. I meant what now when you go to France?"

"Oh, France." Wesley gave a dismal sigh against Brian's shoulder. "I understand that Dickinson has a scroll that might be helpful." He couldn't help putting a world of weariness into the word _scroll_.

"But you're not sanguine?"

"Oh, I'm excessively sanguine. I drank two glasses, after all. No...I just get sick of scrolls sometimes."

"'I am half sick of shadows, sighed the Lady of Shalott.'"

Wesley lifted his head to glare at Brian in the lamplight. Brian said, "You're in Oxford, my dear. Best get used to getting mocked with random quotations."

"I was rather hoping not to get mocked at all."

Brian kissed him. "I think that was an unrealistic expectation."

"Do you indeed?" Wesley said, indignant.

"Have we met? Were you aware I took a First in mocking?"

"No," Wesley said, amused in spite of himself, "but I'm not surprised."

"Also laughing maniacally in chapel, drinking pints from the far edge of the glass, and making mischievous use of the props backstage during theatre performances."

"And they let you become a don?"

"And handjobs."

"All is explained."

But the keen edge of their sparring wits was of limited use. It occurred to Wesley that Brian might also be aware of what they had to lose now, and he rolled forward gingerly to hold him closer, his face nestled against Brian's chest.

"You needn't worry, you know," Brian said softly, ruffling his fingers through Wesley's hair. "I don't kick people when they're down." Wesley knew for certain he was referring to more than the mocking when he added with a sigh, "At least not with malice aforethought."

There it was again, the ache of regret in his voice. Wesley asked quietly: "What did you do that was wrong?"

Brian was still for a moment. Then he drew a long breath and relaxed under Wesley's hand. "I abandoned Elisabeth to the tender mercies of the First Evil for a week," he said, his voice light against its pain, "when she refused to hold Rupert to account for torturing her."

He took a moment to absorb this. He had heard only the bare scaffold of the story of their fight against the First. It had been one of the things he didn't think his memory had room for.

"Why did Giles torture Elisabeth?" he asked now.

"She had seen how the First would be defeated," Brian said. "And she'd sworn not to get involved in case she messed it up."

Wesley knew from experience how well oaths like that turned out.

Brian went on: "If I'd thought further into it, I might have seen his point of view, even if it wouldn't make me like him any better. But -- at the time -- I was still having trouble believing Elisabeth's story about being from another dimension. I mean, all this supernatural stuff was bad enough. I thought perhaps she might have -- become --"

"A little unbalanced?" Wesley supplied.

"If that had been true," Brian said miserably, "it would have been all the more reason I should have stuck by her. But I didn't. The First drove her mad, and she collapsed in college, and it took forever for us to pick up the pieces."

"Wouldn't the First Evil have done that anyway?" Wesley asked, gently, though he knew it didn't matter to a remorse like that.

"Of course," Brian said easily. "And I did everything I could for her when it happened, though that was precious little. But then Rupert came back from the battle, and she took him back. And I...I said a lot of terrible, asshole things, and threatened to dump her friendship. Not to mention humiliating her with my public behavior."

"The bookstore incident?"

"Yes. Between us Rupert and I made pretty short work of a display case. Elisabeth still needles me about the display case sometimes. I think she does it," Brian said, moving his hand in an absent stroke over Wesley's arm, "because it's something we can talk about, unlike the fact that I betrayed her twice over. I didn't --" Brian sighed -- "realize how petty and vindictive I could be during a crisis." He buried his lips in Wesley's hair, despite the faint lingering smell of sewer. "So obviously I can't promise I'd do better by you."

What he had done by Wesley already was grounds for inexhaustible gratitude. "You don't have to give me a promise of any kind," Wesley said. "In fact, it's better if one doesn't."

Brian pulled back to look at him. His eyes were tired but calm. "Yes. But situations like this -- it makes one rather want to, doesn't it."

"Yes," Wesley said, and gathered him close again with a smile. "I promise, you can mock me any time you like."

He was rewarded to feel Brian give a silent laugh. "Oh, generosity itself," Brian said.

"And I intend to extract a promise from you."

"Oh yes?"

"I want to know what a maniacal laugh sounds like."

Brian pulled back from him suddenly, his face lit with delight. "My dear man," he said, "when you least expect it!"

"Good," Wesley said.

"Oh, how brilliant." Brian drew him in again and stroked him close. "I haven't let loose with one in ages and ages and ages. This will take some intuitive planning." He sought Wesley's mouth and kissed him with such thorough enthusiasm that the joy of their meeting bubbled up in him again and made him laugh painfully, breaking the kiss.

"I should let you go to sleep," Brian said without pulling away.

Wesley couldn't stop smiling. "I'm not tired."

"Liar," Brian said. But though he reached up over Wesley to turn out the light, he didn't object when Wesley's caresses grew more specific.

The rest of the night was far too short for what they wanted.

*

Brian turned over in bed, listening to the shower going. It was just barely dawn, and the light in the flat was dim and grey. He suffered a jaw-cracking yawn and kicked his legs free of the covers. Sleepily, he picked up his pajamas from the floor and put them on. So much for clean laundry: his pajamas were hopelessly wrinkled and the sheets needed doing again. Oh well. He went to put on coffee.

He was halfway down a cup and marginally back in the land of the living when the bathroom door opened and Wesley came out, wincing as he rubbed at his ear with his little finger, and wearing the pajamas Brian had lent him. He caught sight of Brian and smiled faintly. "All right?"

Brian grunted. He was beginning to remember all the things he'd put off to today that needed doing, and it was clearly going to take an effort just to get verbal this morning. He pulled out a coffee cup and brandished it at Wesley.

"Ooh, coffee. Excellent."

Brian cleared his throat. "You're not one of those bloody morning people, are you?"

Wesley offered him an apologetic smile as he poured, and lifted his coffee for a sip.

"Should have guessed when you were halfway out the door when I was just waking up the last two times you were here," Brian said. "I hope you have time for an egg and a spot of doctoring this time."

"Spot of doctoring, if I must," Wesley said. "Egg, yes please. I'm rather hungry."

Brian put down his coffee on the counter with a sharp smack. "Bloody hell. I never offered you anything to eat last night, did I?"

"Did you not?" Wesley angled a grin at him as he went to the dining table and bent to examine his boots under the chair. Brian noticed that he was moving with the minimum of constraint, so the modicum of sleep he'd had must have done some good.

"Seriously, Wesley, bin the lot. I have boots you can wear."

"Boots you can bear never to see again?"

"What, are you planning an adventure in a Parisian sewer?"

"No, but one never knows."

"Well, if it comes to that, I'd sooner see you again than the boots." Warmth came into Brian's cheeks as he said it, but he didn't take it back.

"I'll bear that in mind," Wesley said.

The egg and the spot of doctoring were duly accomplished, and Brian was just thinking of getting cleaned up and dressed himself when his mobile rang. Brian looked at the clock and retrieved it from the counter: the screen identified it as Elisabeth, who was no more a morning person than he was. Less so, actually.

"I will kill people today, Brian," she said when he answered.

"Well, you can't borrow my cricket bat," Brian said, catching Wesley's brief glance. "I'm using it next week, and it takes forever to clean off the bloodstains. What's happened now?"

"An email in my inbox has happened. Expressing mild concern about the optics of my presentation."

"The optics?" Brian repeated.

"An email extremely periphrastically wondering how ridiculous it's going to look with me up on the dais as big as a house."

"Oh for God's sake," Brian said, "you can't be serious."

"I wish I weren't. I was going to work very placidly on the section on resurrections this morning. Instead, I'm going to be spending this morning composing an equally-periphrastic fuck-you email and ranting, and Rupert is busy."

Brian grinned. "So you want me to come early."

"Please?"

"Not a problem. As it happens, I am virtuously up and at 'em this morning." Behind him, Wesley snorted.

"I know. What's up with that?"

"Well, not precisely showered and dressed. Can you bear it if I'm not at Pyke's Lea sooner than an hour?"

"Oh, easily. D'you want breakfast when you come?"

"No, I've had breakfast."

"You _are_ up and at 'em. What gives?"

"_C'est mon panache_." Brian could have done without Wesley and Elisabeth snorting back a laugh at him in stereo, but he went on gamely. "I'll see you in an hour or so. Sans cricket bat."

"Sounds like the proper cue for me to get on the road," Wesley said as Brian ended the call. He put his coffee cup down by the sink and began transferring the contents of his pockets to the clothing Brian had given him.

"It's very odd, seeing one's clothes on somebody else," Brian observed, watching him. "What's worse, I think they look better on you than me."

Wesley smiled at him. "I find that hard to believe."

Brian wished down to his marrow that Wesley wasn't going anywhere. He went to him and put his arms around him silently.

Wesley said, "Do I smell better now?" Brian could hear the smile. He put his face against Wesley's temple and breathed in.

"Yes," he murmured. "Quite back to normal. Do you have to go? Aren't you sick of scrolls?"

Wesley laughed and then sighed. "If this doesn't get me anywhere, I will consider swallowing my pride."

Brian held him away to look him in the face. "And come back soon?"

A pained look came into Wesley's face. "Brian -- I can't --"

"You don't have to promise," Brian said. "You just have to come back."

"Are you that anxious to see your boots again?"

"Shall I trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries? Yes," Brian answered, "with you in them."

Wesley smiled, and Brian let his shoulders fall, grimacing.

"_Damn_ it! I was right. Three times _is_ a relationship. _Now_ what the hell am I going to do?"

Wesley laughed so hard that his breath reeled up on a gasp. "Oh, ouch --"

"It wasn't that funny," Brian said.

"I'll give you the context later," Wesley said, recovering enough to kiss Brian's unshaved cheek. "For now, I'd better grab the next train."

*

At Pyke's Lea Elisabeth greeted him with a cup of tea and a kiss on his now-shaven cheek. "You are the best best friend ever," she said.

"I know," Brian said modestly. "Have you composed it?"

"Partly. Come and peruse." She led the way not to her study upstairs, but to the kitchen, where her laptop and an array of books and papers dominated the kitchen table: she had wisely stopped trotting up and down the stairs every time she wanted to make a cup of tea.

Brian read through the email she'd received, grimacing in sympathy, and then through the draft of her reply. "It's a pity you can't simply ignore him," he said.

"I know," she said, "but he's on the committee."

"If there were more women on the English Faculty," Brian said innocently, "you would all have less of this to put up with."

"Don't want to be on the faculty," Elisabeth said, as she'd said a number of times before.

"My department has a plenitude of women," Brian said.

"And God help them all," Elisabeth retorted, glaring at him over her glasses.

Brian swallowed his grin. "It's a good reply," he said. "Just the right blend of unflappable smack-downery."

"Thank you."

He let Elisabeth take his place at the computer and went to fill both their teacups. "So have you got the notes on the section for me to look at?"

"Yes," Elisabeth said, "in that folder over there."

"And soooo," Brian said, scooping it up, "we turn from the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to to the handful of unnatural shocks befalling a chosen few."

Elisabeth glanced at him amused. "You're in a good mood today."

"Not at all," Brian said. "I am swallowed up in Shakespeare, and loving your air conditioning not wisely but too well. What is keeping Rupert too busy to listen to your rant?"

"He's been trying to get hold of Faith, who hasn't reported in for a month now. And apparently Wesley stirred up a hornet's nest in Budapest this week; Rupert got a very angry call from an ex-Watcher at 5 a.m., about a tomb inscription that was supposed to be kept under guard."

"I'm sure they can get another sewer demon to block the access," Brian said.

Elisabeth looked up at him. "What do you know about it?"

Brian looked up, innocently he hoped, from his perusal of the folder. "Oh, Wesley was here," he said. "On a flying visit last night. He had time to give me some of the story."

"Really," Elisabeth said. "Well, as far as I know he didn't check in here."

Brian shrugged eloquently. "I'm feeling peckish. Do you have any biscuits in this place?"

"In the cabinet," Elisabeth said, still looking at him thoughtfully. "If you have no objections, we'll all have lunch in about an hour or two."

"Sounds great." Brian put a biscuit in his mouth, brushed the crumbs off on his trousers, and opened the folder again, ignoring her gaze.

For a long time there was only the sound of Elisabeth's fingers on the keys and Brian turning pages in the folder, pen in hand. After a while, Elisabeth flipped down the lid of her laptop and said, "Mind helping me start lunch? It's chicken salad sandwiches."

Brian agreed, with some enthusiasm as he was now getting very hungry indeed. "What shall I do?"

"If you wouldn't mind," Elisabeth said, opening a drawer and pulling out some napkins, "we need some cheese and bread sliced."

The napkins were fuchsia wedding napkins. Brian smiled affectionately at them. "Have we made any headway on using them all up?"

Elisabeth grinned at him as she opened a bag of cheese curls. "Not so much. Rupert suggested we put a pile of them next to the toilet, but when I mentioned the Plumbing Disaster he changed his mind." She got out the cutting board and placed it next to the bowl of chicken salad. "Here, you slice bread and I'll make up sandwiches." Brian took the bread knife she handed him and joined her at the counter.

Which was his undoing, as he'd forgotten about Elisabeth's heightened sense of smell. She paused in piling his bread slices to sniff at him. "Are you wearing a new aftershave?"

"No," he said, with an inward grimace.

"You smell funny. I thought so when you walked in." She put her nose against his sleeve and sniffed again. "Have you been cooking with basil?"

"No," Brian said.

"You smell like...wait." She took a step back, frowning at him: then her eyes went wide and her mouth opened. She pointed at him three or four times before she could get the words out.

"You've been sleeping with Wesley!"

"No I haven't!" was out his mouth before he could think. Even he thought it sounded pathetic.

"Yes, you have! That explains everything! I thought you sounded evasive this morning." She stared at him, shaking her head in gleeful wonder. "It's so obvious, why didn't I see it before?"

He tried to protest, but could only make a few spluttering noises.

"Don't try to lie, Brian. You suck at lying. Give it up. How long has this --" She broke off when Rupert came into the kitchen, and Brian pleaded with her in a look.

"Brian," Rupert greeted him, taking out a juice glass and pulling the pitcher out of the fridge. Then to Elisabeth, "What were you saying about Wesley, darling?"

Brian silently begged her not to spill the whole thing. Elisabeth turned to Rupert, putting a fist on her hip.

"Wesley," she said, "came through town last night without so much as a how-do-you-do to us, so Brian tells me."

Rupert's mind was clearly elsewhere, because he didn't follow the implications of that statement. "Well, if he doesn't have anything to report, he doesn't have anything to report. And if he gets his rocks off --" Elisabeth grinned, and Brian suffered -- "by interfering with a long-standing Watcher enclave feud in Central Europe, I do wish he'd do it without interrupting _my_ sleep."

Brian pinched the bridge of his nose. Elisabeth laughed.

"I'm sorry, Elisabeth," Rupert went on, "but I'm waiting for a call, and I'm still typing up that report. Do you mind very much if I take my sandwich into the study?" He looked at her ruefully.

Elisabeth went heavily up on tiptoe to kiss him. "No, I don't mind," she said. "I have things to talk about with Brian. You finish the thing." They smiled at one another companionably, and Brian felt a new stab of jealousy, not of either Rupert or Elisabeth, but of their uninterrupted quotidian love.

Rupert took a sandwich, snagged a handful of cheese curls from the bag to add to the plate, retrieved his juice glass, and disappeared again. Elisabeth turned to Brian.

"All right," she said, "spill it."

*

"It started because we were drunk....If you're going to laugh, I won't tell you anything at all."

Elisabeth straightened her face and took a bite of sandwich. "Very well," she said, chewing, "go on."

Brian had lost his appetite. He stared down at his sandwich and started again. "We got into the pub and were talking. We had a lot to say to one another. We had more to say than we had sobriety to say it in. I took him home with me so he wouldn't have to go stumbling around looking for his lodgings. Then one thing led to another and...." He tailed off with a shrug.

"When was this?"

"Oh, the first time he was in Oxford."

"So --" Elisabeth cocked her head to stare thoughtfully at him. "So you were pretty well assured he wasn't the First from the start."

Brian blushed and dropped his eye. Elisabeth laughed, and he raised his head to glare at her.

"Elisabeth --"

"Brian, I'm sorry, but you have it coming." Elisabeth put down her sandwich and finally allowed herself a good chuckle.

"You always laugh at me," he complained.

"Because you always get yourself into the most beautifully comedic stories. Go on. What happened after that?"

"Nothing," Brian said. "I thought that was the end of it. It'd been a long time for him, and God knows it'd been a long time for me, so it wasn't _too_ hard to figure. Then when he came back, I confronted him about the whole having-been-dead thing. It took him a while to explain himself to my satisfaction, and then --" Brian thought out his next words carefully, trying to find an accurate description of what had happened next. "And then we were back where we were before. Only not drunk. I...I can't explain."

"Well, _I_ can now explain the mysterious hilarity when I brought up Bevis and his fixation on phallus worship."

Brian's mouth twitched into a smile in spite of himself. "Yes, that was...well. Apropos to the situation, I suppose you might say. Even that might have been the end of it, though -- except that then he turned up again last night, and...and we...." Brian plowed a hand through his hair.

"You slept with him more than twice," Elisabeth said, in a voice of sudden understanding.

"Yes," Brian said bleakly. "And now I'm going to be perfectly wretched till he comes back."

"Oh, Brian." He couldn't look at her face, but he could hear the sympathetic ache in her voice.

"And it's not like it's a walk in the park he's going on," Brian said, staring through the kitchen doorway. "You should have seen what that sewer demon did to him."

"Bad?" Behind the question lay all the history of makeshift doctoring that their clan had done for one another: an attitude both matter-of-fact and apprehensive.

"It could have been worse," Brian said, shrugging. "Some gouges on his side and some cracked ribs. I gave him as much first aid as I could, and he left this morning, and I knew better than to try to make him promise he'd see a doctor, but it's -- I didn't half want to smack his face."

"But you didn't," she said, and the dry tone of her voice made him look at her at last.

"No," Brian said, "I didn't."

"Yep," she said, and there was a heavy shine in her eyes as she looked at him. "Sounds like love to me."

Brian groaned. "This has all the earmarks of a _catastrophe_, is what. I keep asking myself what the bloody hell I was thinking. Starting a relationship with a Watcher!" Elisabeth started to laugh, but he no longer cared. "And that's to say nothing of what my _parents_ are going to say when they find out I'm seeing a man. Oh, God!" He put his head in his hands.

"Brian," Elisabeth said delicately, "your parents..._are_ aware that yours is not a conventional sexuality?"

Brian raised his head. "It ought to be bloody well obvious by now that mine is not a conventional anything, but it doesn't make a damn bit of difference. They're going to be made unhappy. I hate making them unhappy," he said, frowning down at his uneaten sandwich. "It always makes me think of all the things I could tell them that would make them even unhappier."

"Speaking of telling people things," Elisabeth said.

"You're going to have to tell Rupert, aren't you."

"Would you prefer me to do it?"

"And also preferably when I'm out of the house. Please."

"Okay."

They looked at one another across the table. Brian said finally, "D'you think he'll hit the ceiling?"

"And disturb the frescoes?" Elisabeth smiled. "No. He may, I anticipate, register some concern about possible conflicts of interest."

He couldn't pretend not to know what she was talking about. "Would it help," he said, "if I said that if any conflicts of interest develop, it at least won't be because I want them to?"

She gave him an open, rueful smile. "It helps me. As for the rest, I think we'll just have to wait and see."

"Yes," Brian said. "And so long as no one behaves to me as I behaved to you, we should do quite well."

Silence descended over the table. Brian picked with one fingernail at a chip on the rim of his plate.

"Brian," Elisabeth said softly.

"You do know," he answered her very quietly, past the ache in his throat, "that I'm sorry about that?"

"Yes," she said. And then she leaned across the table to look under his lowered gaze. "Yes," she said again. She was not laughing at him at all now.

He withdrew his eyes from hers again and cleared his throat. "Right," he said.

When she spoke again her voice was so gentle that it pricked the tears to his eyes against all his efforts. "There are no uncleared accounts between you and me, Brian."

He looked back at her then, attempting to smile. "Then will you shut up about that fucking display case?"

"Yes!" Elisabeth laughed, and pulled off her glasses to wipe her face.

*

The address Dickinson had given him in Reims went to a door in a row office building on a rather public street: entirely innocuous, and Wesley was suspicious. After all, Wolfram &amp; Hart had been a decently public building, and it was no less dangerous to walk in there for all that. Wesley decided to be late. He walked away from his vantage point across the street and found a nearby _tabac_, where he bought some stationery and stamps. He took the suspicious credit card and the card with Faith's number on it out of his wallet and wrote a note.

> _My dear Whitaker -- I do hate to keep sending you things, but it occurs to me that these are items I would not like to have on my person while meeting with the people I am going to see. Could you keep them safe for me? The credit card I had on me when I woke up. I've been leery of using it. Perhaps Willow would be able to make something of it; but that can wait for my return._

Wesley reread the words and thought that the number of things he was giving away in this letter could be disastrous. It wouldn't go amiss to put a small glamour on the envelope before he posted it to Brian. However, it wouldn't change the things he was giving away to his recipient. But Wesley thought he was rather past being closed to Brian.

> _I am, in fact, less sanguine than I was. But I suspect it will be less difficult than I thought to swallow my pride. I have you to thank for that. Yours -- W.P._

If the scroll turned out to be a dead end, these items would be his next concern, and he would have not only to consider the difficulty of swallowing his pride and letting Giles and Buffy take his case, but also the difficulty of contacting and dealing with Faith as the "trade" Brian had suggested. It would need all the equilibrium he had gained to do both. He looked for a long careful moment at the card with Faith's contact information -- read, memorize, send to lover -- before putting it in with the letter and credit card.

With an air of burning a bridge, Wesley sealed up the envelope, spoke a quiet incantation, and posted it in a pillar box on his way back to the rendezvous.

*

He was led upstairs to a small, unpretentious office with a pleasant view of the street. It was not long before Dickinson joined him. "My dear Mr Wyndam-Pryce. It's been too long."

Dickinson was an older Watcher with a very dissolute air which was heightened by his trim silver mustache. He hadn't changed much, Wesley thought as he watched him recline against the credenza and pull a thin scroll-case out of his jacket pocket. He tapped it against his other hand and then tossed it to the credenza's top within Wesley's reach.

Wesley stared at it without moving to touch it, growing less sanguine by the minute. "You're double-crossing me."

"No," he said, genially, "it's the real scroll."

"But you haven't haggled with me over the price," Wesley said. "So I'm forced to conclude --"

"My dear boy," Dickinson said, "you don't have anything I want. You can't pay me enough for a view of this scroll, and I have all the books socked away that you have. Consider this a token of my generosity."

"A token of your generosity," Wesley repeated, with a thin smile.

"And sympathy." Dickinson leaned his hip more comfortably against the credenza. "After all, you used to have all this information directly at your fingertips. You didn't have to cross the globe to read this scroll; you merely had to cross your office. How frustrating that must be."

"It's true," Wesley said, with his eyes on the scroll case. "At my last employment there was rather less tangling with sewer demons, and rather more watching one's friends being devoured from within, starting with their conscience."

"But your conscience remained intact," Dickinson said dryly.

"Did I say that?" Wesley smiled bitterly.

"You implied it."

Wesley gave him a long, level look, and quoted finally: "_La parole a été donnée à l'homme pour déguiser sa pensée_."

"Yes, but not to oneself, my dear boy. Your problem is, you've got the art of subtlety exactly backwards."

"I have no doubt that's true," Wesley said.

Dickinson said casually, "However, there is one thing I'd be interested in. You might possibly have read and remembered the inscription on that tomb when you retrieved it for Exeter."

Wesley smiled again. "I think," he said, "that could make a very satisfactory trade."

*

In the end, he thought, Dickinson had the better deal: the scroll was in fact no help to him, and of very little interest besides. It dealt solely with predictions of the disturbing of the rest of certain knowledge-keepers, which happened all the time, provided the disturbers weren't actually disposed of by sewer demons. It wasn't predictions Wesley wanted, it was practical mechanics. How had it happened? What portal had opened in Manchester? What dimension had he passed through?

He passed back the scroll case to Dickinson. "I thank you for the favor," he said without color, looked up, and found Dickinson studying him with interest.

"You've changed," he said.

Wesley answered dryly, "Since going to the States? Or since my death?" If he was reading Dickinson correctly, there was no point concealing his mission.

"Both," Dickinson said. "Let me walk you out."

At the door to the street, Dickinson turned to Wesley with an unaffected smile. "I would like to hear more about your sojourn in Wolfram &amp; Hart," he said.

"Do you have anything I want?" Wesley said, gravely.

"I might." Dickinson grinned. "Buy me dinner."

Wesley sighed inwardly. He could be on his way back to Oxford right now. He could beat the post to Brian's flat. Now that he knew this trip was a dead end, Wesley had become aware of a subtle relief in his pulses. True, he would have to make a deal with Giles, Buffy, and Willow; and yet if that was the next step to take, there was freedom in knowing it for certain. And he'd be with Brian again, fulfilling his promise to be mocked, telling him stories, getting too little sleep in bed....But Dickinson had a lot of useful information, and it'd be a shame to waste the opportunity.

"Very well," Wesley said.

He reached automatically for his wallet, to check and see whether he needed to get more cash; and so he didn't see the blow coming when it smashed against his skull from behind.


	5. The Sea of Trees

With the idleness born of long-endured desperation, Brian took down a box of tea from the grocery shelf and studied it glumly, his elbows braced on the trolley. He was so lost in thought that he didn't hear at first when someone spoke his name near at hand.

"Brian?...Brian. _Brian_."

He looked up, and saw Anne Langland standing before him, string bag in hand, her light windbreaker streaked with the rain that had been falling all day. "Oh, hullo," he said. He tried a smile.

She cocked her head, looking at him. "The situation seems to have deteriorated. Or is it the same situation?"

"Nope, same one." Brian sighed and turned over the box of tea in his hands. "I'm in love." It was the first time saying it out loud, and he let the words fall like leaves of a book, flat facts aligning over the silence.

"Oh dear." He looked up at her, afraid she might be laughing at him, but she wasn't, though the perennial subfusc humor of her expression was there. She went on, "That _is_ a situation. May one ask with whom?"

"You haven't met him, I think. A former colleague of Rupert's," Brian said to the box of tea.

Anne's arms rose to cross thoughtfully, and she stepped closer to him, shoulders raised. "A Watcher? That's very...I thought that --"

"Yes, yes," Brian said, "I hate Watchers, I'm well known for it, wankers to a man, the lot of them." He let the tea tumble out of his hands into the trolley, and straightened up.

"I see," Anne said.

"Karma, as usual, is having the last laugh." Brian grinned faintly, and Anne smiled back.

"Does he, er, know of your attachment?" she said.

"Yes," Brian said.

"And does he...share it?"

Brian took in a long breath, thinking. "Yes. I think so. It's hard to say. I'm -- oddly inexperienced in this area of -- " He broke off with a blush.

Anne canted back her head and fixed him with the probing frown that, since knowing her, Brian had half-consciously imitated to hale truth out of his students. "Then why the long --"

"Have you ever been in love?" Brian asked her.

She relaxed into a real smile. "No," she said, "alas. I did develop a grand passion for St. John of the Cross in my giddy youth, but being as he was dead, it all came to nothing in the end."

Brian groaned. "Oh, ha ha ha."

Her eyes danced. "It's my little joke. I try not to wear it out."

"To answer the question you haven't asked yet," Brian said, "the situation is, not only am I completely bloody foolishly in love, he's gone off on a mission and I haven't seen him for three weeks. I had two letters from him in the few days after he left Oxford, and then nothing. Not a word." He frowned helplessly down into the trolley. "I'm getting very worried."

"Yes," she said, "that is worrying. I hope he turns up."

"And if he does turn up, I'll be hard pressed not to beat him into next week. That is, if he's not already injured, like he was the last -- " He stopped. "As you can see, a total hash all the way around."

She nodded. "I'll remember you tonight at evensong. And him."

"I wish you would," Brian said. "It's difficult when Elisabeth and Rupert are so taken up with other things. I can't...." Struck by a new thought, he looked at her squarely. "Anne, d'you ever get tired of listening to people's troubles?"

Her smile turned wry. "Not when they're my friends' troubles. I like to keep informed."

Brian grimaced. "Well, consider yourself informed. You're coming to Elisabeth's presentation, are you not?"

"Oh, yes, wouldn't miss it."

"Good." Brian smiled at her. "Perhaps by then we'll all have something to celebrate."

She reached out and patted his arm as she moved on past.

*

Wesley woke in a dim room with a splitting headache and a settled conviction that he was in for a very unpleasant time.

Without moving, he let his gaze clear and focus on the wall ahead, and took quiet stock of himself. He was naked. _It was the second little jacket and pair of shoes that Peter had lost in a fortnight -- Oh, Brian_, he thought, _I'm sorry. They've taken your boots and I don't know what they've done with them._

Right, he was naked, and the room was warm. There was a fresh dressing on his side, and it hurt much less. The room appeared to be a small one, with not a stick of furniture in it. He was lying on his back on the wood floor. He turned his head, and discovered where he'd been hit; with a gasp he lay his head back where it was, and breathed down the nausea.

He didn't remember being hit. He concentrated his gaze on the wall and sifted his thoughts. _Dead man_. Slayers; Watchers. Watchers; Gillsworth; that fucking scroll. Yes: Dickinson. He'd walked into a trap; and he must have known it on some level, because he'd sent the credit card and Faith's contact information to his only friend in this world.

If he still _was_ in this world. He could be anywhere, and not just anywhere in Europe. Even if he'd been killed, obviously he was still somewhere for the purpose of something, and there seemed no way out of it. Wesley now had a clearer notion of what Angel meant when he claimed that immortality was a drag. And there seemed to be no dimension in which he wasn't a total sucker. _When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes....Oh, Brian_. Real grief suddenly rose within him, saturating his whole mind and heart, leaving no part of him outside of it; and even as he closed his eyes against tears, the watcher in his head who always cynically observed his worst moments was compelled into gratitude to be included.

_Do you have to go? Aren't you sick of scrolls?_ Yes, he could have answered at once. He could have abandoned the quest right then without an instant's regret; gods knew he had wanted to almost from the moment he began it. But scrolls weren't sick of him yet. He was part of something that was happening.

At this thought he opened his eyes. _Look east_, Dennison had said. _But not before you fuck a bunch of things up_. Wesley hadn't considered fucking things up on purpose, but he had been imprisoned by someone or something who was just _asking_ for Wesley to fuck them up. He had to wait for no one's cue.

With a slow and inexorable effort, he began to move himself, pausing to breathe through the waves of dizziness that swept over him. _This is a bad concussion_, he thought; _I hope whoever's done this has factored in my need for medical attention_. Presumably they had, if the changed dressing on his ribs was any indication.

He crawled slowly, shaking, to what he dubbed in his mind the eastern corner of the little room. If there was more guarding him than a locked door, he would find out at the corners. When he reached it, he closed his eyes and gathered his strength. He stretched out a hand, murmuring, and met what he had expected: force, knotted at this corner and therefore at all the others. Wesley moved his fingers in a stroking motion; the force resisted him like a recalcitrant cat. A workmanlike casting, he diagnosed; too strong for him to overcome on his own in a short time and in his condition, but not beautifully disheartening in its power: not Vail. Not Vail, and probably not Wolfram &amp; Hart. Watchers. It felt like Watchers' magic. _Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?_ "No one," Wesley murmured to Brian, as if he were there with him. "It's a pity, isn't it."

Wesley's magical diagnosis had taken strength away from his efforts against nausea. He put down his hand and was painfully, rackingly sick into the corner. Afterward, he considered just lying down where he was in the corner and going back to sleep; but it occurred to him that he should at least make a gesture toward pretending he had not been investigating his bonds. Slowly he crawled back to the middle of the floor and collapsed with his cheek against the cool boards. He had taken stock of the room on his way and seen that not only was the door fastened with no handle on the inside, there was nothing in the room with him, not even a sanitary bucket. _Good heavens_, Wesley thought, closing his eyes on a very dry smile, _these people are worse assholes than I._

*

Though worry had begun to eat into him like acid, Brian had nevertheless welcomed the time to think. He had spent most of his time in his rooms in college, organizing his research notes, answering overdue emails, carrying on a long conversation about science fiction with a colleague from Merton whose specialty was 20th Century. It had occurred to him more than once over the last few years that sooner or later he was going to have to address the divide between his life in Oxford and his life as a member of a sort-of-secret cabal of evil fighters: and this looked like being the point at which he could no longer duck the issue. He had hoped, just short of consciously, that this divide would resolve itself into a melding without any direct effort on his part, and had ignored the fact that all of Oxford knew he had gone spare about Elisabeth Bowen and thrown a punch at a Magdalen old student in St. Andrew's Bookstore for reasons which didn't completely bear scrutiny, especially since Giles was one of those odd ducks that sometimes passed through the University. It was likely that some spoke of him, Brian Whitaker, in the same undertone he'd heard used when someone referred to Rupert Giles.

And he had thought he had a lot to live down as an undergraduate.

Brian went back to his flat to sleep most nights, thinking he'd want to be there in case Wesley showed up, but he had nevertheless noticed his urge to take refuge in his academic home. And when a voice had said at his doorway, "I say, Whitaker --" he had looked up at once, but it was only Northcross wanting his copy of the Colloquium itinerary. Brian had submerged his disappointment and given Northcross what he needed, and sat down again with little heart to get back into his books.

There was not putting your oar in, and there was sitting by doing nothing while a person you cared about disappeared without a trace, never to be heard of again. Brian had faithfully posted back the torn half of a tomb rubbing that Wesley had sent him, trying not to reflect on the significance of the dried bloodstains on the creased paper, and dismissing with an effort the fancy of shadows trailing him home after each day's work. After Northcross had gone, Brian reached for his heavy paperback Dante omnibus and pulled out Wesley's second letter, which he'd laid in as a bookmark. He slid the paper out of its envelope, fingered the two cards inside, let his eyes run again over the greeting. The first time he'd read the letter he had flushed warm all over, not just at the magnitude of Wesley's trust in him, but at the mere homeliness of his address. _My dear Whitaker_ \-- nothing could be more ordinary; nothing could be more utterly welcome.

It wasn't till more time had passed that Brian had fully noticed the ominous overtones to Wesley's precaution. He had gone among people he didn't trust with his person, so he had sent his most vulnerable possessions to Brian. And that had been days and weeks ago; and there had been no news since. Brian had even overcome his reluctance and asked Rupert for news about him; but Rupert had had none, and had looked worried enough himself that Brian had not resented the thoughtful look he gave him. But Brian had not asked again; and had scarcely even allowed himself to look at the letter again, as if even that might jeopardize Wesley's secrets. But holding the letter in his hands that afternoon, Brian had experienced a suffocating need to _do_ something to see Wesley safe.

What was to stop him dropping everything and going to look for Wesley himself? Unfortunately Brian knew all too well. Even supposing he were to cut through his entanglements both with helping to organize this colloquium and Elisabeth's presentation for it, even supposing he damned the start of term in a scant six weeks, Brian knew that if he went to France (the postmark on Wesley's letter said Reims) he wouldn't know where to start. He'd have to trace his steps right through the midst of the people Wesley hadn't trusted, who, judging from the few things Wesley had said, were probably Watchers and probably knew how to avoid ever being found by the likes of Brian. He could enlist Rupert's expertise for the job; but although Brian was willing to consider theoretically abandoning all his responsibilities, theory stopped at asking an expectant father to step into that kind of trap with him.

He could look up Robson and punch his lights out. Even if the Council had nothing to do with the particular Watchers Wesley had been seeking, thrashing a Council man was a very appealing thought. Despite his impulsive act in the bookstore, however, Brian did not often give physical vent to his bloodthirsty thoughts and suspected he would not be a terribly effective fighter in reality. Robson could probably kill him just as easily as Rupert could. Or Wesley.

It occurred to Brian suddenly that it was preposterous for him to be envious of these men for their skills when he actually preferred his own vocation and responsibilities. At least, he thought he did.

He looked around his room slowly, as if the books on the shelves and the thick-paned windows could supply him with an immediate answer. What am I _doing_? he thought. He had come to Oxford in a backlash against the unexamined life, and here he was fifteen years later trundling between his desk in college and his cramped little flat, sleepwalking half the time and raging at occupation the other half. Never sleeping with anyone more than twice. And yet not stable; he was still ashamed of how badly last year's apocalypse had upended his equilibrium.

None of which made him any use helping Wesley. And speaking of swallowing one's pride....

_If I don't hear from him by the end of the week_, Brian thought, _I'll call Buffy and beg her to help me find him._

He refolded the letter and cards into their envelope, returned it to its place in Dante, and set aside the book.

*

The next time Wesley woke, a man's fingertips were probing his wrist for a pulse. His natural impulse was to be cooperative, and it only occurred to him some seconds later that he could have taken the man hostage. However, that would have instantly put his captors on their guard, and he wanted more information first. He opened his eyes and turned over slowly.

Two Watchers stood waiting at his feet; there was a third man at the door, though Wesley's view was slightly obstructed by the fourth, the man giving him medical attention. Though he hadn't moved much, Wesley knew himself to be less dizzy, so without making any sudden moves he struggled slowly to a sitting position, and the medic moved away as he sat up.

All four of the men were known to him. One of them was Dickinson. Another was Exeter, whom he'd seen last in Budapest. The names of the third and fourth escaped him. The man by the door held in one hand a paper sack with handles, and a bucket. At the sight of the bucket Wesley broke into a wide smile.

At last Dickinson spoke. "Good afternoon, Wesley. I am sorry we had to detain you in such an impolite fashion, but we didn't know if we could trust you."

There were any number of ways they could have "impolitely" detained Wesley, including getting him thoroughly drunk at dinner, so Dickinson's assurances held even less water than he probably expected them to. Wesley thought how annoying it was to be the scion of one of the oldest Council families and be subjected to the condescending familiarity of being addressed by his given name. Dickinson might pretend that this was a simple post-Harrowing negotiation of trust between colleagues, but Wesley was very familiar with the scent and taste of Watcherly contempt, and the longer he was awake the less he wanted to play.

"I'm sorry to receive you in such a state of _deshabille_," he said, letting his head fall into a sardonic tilt.

"Ah," Dickinson said, "yes. Our apologies. We didn't want you escaping before we found out what we needed to know. There are some...unexplained aspects to your reappearance, you see."

Wesley sighed inwardly. If these Watchers were acting under the aegis of the Council, it would be difficult to elude questioning from here on in. He wished he'd given more heed to what Dennison and Sister Melita had told him. He wished that instead of posting vulnerable items to Brian Whitaker he had gone back to Oxford himself. He wished he hadn't landed himself naked in a room full of clothed men. Dammit.

"Indeed," was all Wesley said.

"Yes," Dickinson said dryly. "I would still very much like to have that conversation with you about your time at Wolfram &amp; Hart. I believe it would be most illuminating -- for both of us."

Wesley raised an eyebrow. They were cutting to the chase already? That in itself was illuminating. "What exactly would you like to know?"

"Well -- " Dickinson looked around, took the bucket from the Watcher at the door, upended it and settled himself upon it with an air of satisfaction. "I am sure," he went on, "considering your responsibilities, that you've gleaned a great deal of knowledge about Wolfram &amp; Hart's magical operations. Now, as you may be aware, the powers held by the Council have been greatly diminished since the rise of the witch, and there are some resources in the Wolfram &amp; Hart archives that would be very useful to us if they were to be made available." Before Wesley could remark upon his interesting reference to Willow Rosenberg -- _maga_, he thought -- or the improbability of his being able and willing to assist them, Dickinson continued.

"The power balances have been sadly upended in the last couple of years," he said. "Quite apart from the disturbances in Los Angeles, the unfortunate choices made by Miss Summers in response to the difficulties posed by the Harrowing -- " (Wesley stifled a sardonic smile with difficulty) -- "have made the damage complete."

Wesley stared at him thoughtfully. None of what he was saying was exactly untrue, but Wesley wondered if Dickinson would think of the situation in just those terms had he actually been on the ground for those events. But he refrained from saying so, and waited.

"We are hoping to restore some of those balances. But it will take resources that we don't yet have and are in the process of acquiring."

_The Scythe_, Wesley thought suddenly. He had forgotten to ask Giles who had it. And if it was the Scythe they were after --

"Do you really think it is possible to return the Slayer's power to a single girl?" he said, before he could stop himself.

Dickinson smiled so genially that Wesley wondered if any of his father's generation had looked at him with equal pleasure. "Perspicacious as always, my dear boy," he said, and Wesley schooled his expression. _Junior's cut the leash._

"We do indeed believe it is possible," Dickinson said.

"And I suppose you have not secured Miss Summers's cooperation for this experiment?" Wesley said dryly.

Dickinson gave a regretful sigh. "I am afraid not," he said. "But that makes little odds if we are successful. We have succeeded in identifying a suitable young host for the powers; it only remains to acquire the other components of the operation."

"Then you do not have the Scythe in your possession?" Wesley asked, bluntly.

Dickinson hesitated, and Wesley was hit with another insight. Faith. Of course they would tiptoe around revealing to him that Faith had the Scythe; Faith had been his Slayer and naturally they would expect him to take her part if they sought to harm her. It was next to impossible to expect that Faith would have given Dickinson's agent the Scythe willingly; and so either Faith was dead, or she was embattled. Either of which would explain her radio silence; and it seemed that Giles didn't know how right he was to be concerned.

Dickinson apparently decided that brevity was the best course. "We expect to have all the elements in place very shortly."

"I see," Wesley said. "And where do I come in?"

"For a man in your position you ask a great many questions," Dickinson said, with a gentle smile. "The answer is that the extent of your knowledge base would be of use to us in the magical part of the operation. Not to mention any additional knowledge you might have of the Scythe."

Which was next to nothing. Wesley said, "I was not aware that failing to kill a powerful Black Thorn mage was a qualification for operations of the type you describe. Why do you not apply to Wolfram &amp; Hart itself for the resources you need?"

"Ah," Dickinson said, his rueful sigh making no difference to his general cat-and-canary air. "Unfortunately, Wolfram &amp; Hart has rebuffed our advances to make a temporary alliance." (Wesley resisted the impulse to snort.) "They are not sympathetic to our cause."

"Surely they would prefer to have only one Slayer to deal with," Wesley said mildly.

"It seems that preserving the status quo, even if that status quo is chaotic and uncertain, is much more to the firm's interests than having fewer opponents on the field," Dickinson said, and there was a thread of fine steel in his voice now. "As the vampire no doubt discovered before us."

"Angel," Wesley corrected him, with a hint of his own steel.

"Quite," Dickinson said. "We've been set back more than six months in our plans, thanks to Angel's ability to inspire loyalty." He gave Wesley a very thin smile indeed.

Six months? What had happened six months ago? Wesley thought; then it came to him with the shock of horror. "It was you," he breathed. "You were the one who sent -- "

"Yes," Dickinson said sourly, "the demon firm we contracted with for the robotics work required a great deal of our capital, and we had nothing to show for it in the end."

Wesley looked away from them all, absorbing it. These Watchers had contracted to build a demon robot to impersonate his father in the service of their plans. And the Council had not known of it. So this wasn't a Council enterprise. Of all the emotions this illuminating knowledge might have aroused, Wesley found relief coming uppermost, relief that his father, much as Wesley hated him -- hated? yes, hated -- was not involved in this wicked thing. Relief at his relief, that his hate had not gone all the way to the bone. The Council was not planning a permanent worldwide Cruciamentum. They might be searching for him, but for much less ominous reasons. Not that Wesley wanted to fall into the Council's hands any more than he had before. Besides, if they didn't know of this, they would not likely be looking for a way to retrieve him. Would Giles track him here...wherever here was? Would Brian goad him to it?

Brian. Another thing to add to the list of things he should have done differently: instead of sending Brian his contact information for Faith, he should have sent Brian his own card back. Now these Watchers presumably were investigating its significance. Wesley didn't know if he could take another situation with a figurative gun held to a lover's head.

In any event, dealing with this was going to require the use of a great deal of poker face, something which Wesley was not sure he was up to. He looked back to see Dickinson regarding him with another beatific smile.

"Why are you telling me all this?" Wesley said.

"Because the questions you ask are at least as illuminating as the answers I have to give you," Dickinson said.

"And do you honestly think I'd be willing to cooperate with you, at this time of the day?" Something didn't compute: if these people were admittedly responsible for an incident that had caused him such anguish, why would they tell him freely of it and simultaneously expect him to consider working for them?

"Well, there are pros and cons to the choice from your perspective, I am sure," Dickinson said. "Which is why we've arranged to give you a little time to think the matter over. Desmond?" As Dickinson rose, Desmond moved from his place at the door and took a few small parcels out of the paper sack he carried. Food, it looked like. Desmond placed the parcels on the floor next to the bucket, and the four Watchers moved away from Wesley and toward the door.

"We can talk again later. In the meantime, do make yourself at home."

*

In the end, it was Buffy who called Brian.

He was at the door of his flat, juggling two sacks of groceries to get at his keys, when his mobile rang. He unlocked the door, dumped the sacks unceremoniously on the floor, fished the thing out of his pocket, and answered it. "Hullo?"

"Brian," Buffy said, in a very brisk tone that Brian had begun to learn to interpret.

"Buffy," he said warily. "Good to hear from you. How's Rome?"

"Dunno," Buffy said, "I'm not there."

"No?"

"No, I'm on the train to Oxford."

That...sounded ominous. "Really," Brian said, and then added with sudden panic, "Elisabeth -- "

"No, she's fine. It's something else. There's going to be a meeting at Pyke's Lea tonight. Can you be there?"

"Something's happened."

"Yeah," Buffy said. Brian had heard her sound grim before, but there was an edge of both frustration and almost fear in her voice. Under normal circumstances Brian would have pressed her for details about the situation, but now he sensed a need to be moderate.

"Can you tell me what this is about?" He reached for the door of his flat, to close it.

Predictably, Buffy led with, "You'll get the full brief at the meeting." But then she added, "Some stuff has happened, and -- Giles said -- well, I'm afraid it has to do with Wesley."

Brian went very still, his hand on the door. After a moment he said, "Is he dead? I mean, again?"

"We don't know," Buffy said. "Come to the meeting."

"I'll be there," Brian said.

*

Wesley had thought that the "little time" for thinking the matter over would be something like a few hours, or a day. But when many hours passed and nothing happened, Wesley began to wonder. It was an embarrassingly long time before the true solution occurred to him, long enough that a second meal had been brought to him and his bucket replaced.

They would like for him to help them, of course; and if they had not yet succeeded in getting the Scythe away from Faith, or if they were still en route with it from Japan, it would take some time in any case; but even if Wesley was not willing to assist them in this operation, it was prudent to have him locked up securely out of the way. Sealed in this little room, Wesley could not go to Faith himself -- which he might soon have done in any case -- or betray their plans to Giles or Robson, or merely interfere with their plans by the accident of following his own researches, which he suspected he had begun to do. Certainly the remains of the Council were actively alert for news of the doings of any Watchers in the field thanks to him.

Wesley began to suspect that simply having him out of the way was their primary aim; after all, they claimed he was enough of a magical heavyweight to be of use to them, and yet they had sealed him in this room with only a simple binding, one that a real magical heavyweight would be able to undo with the click of his fingers. And supposing he did choose to assist with the necessary spells? If they were successful, he would be their cat's paw; if they failed, he would be their patsy.

_You spring as many traps as you fall into_, Sister Melita had said. "Well," Wesley said sarcastically, "you should see me now." Perhaps she could.

These men were extremely confident, it seemed, that he would be willing to at least consider helping them -- why? It must be that they considered him exceptionally weak-willed; and in addition, they knew that he had been washed up alone in the world after the cataclysm in Los Angeles. As far as they knew, he had no one to take an interest in his welfare or act on his behalf. Yet another reason to worry about Brian's safety.

The thing that remained to do was precisely the thing that Dickinson had recommended: to think.

*

Wesley's beard grew in. He learned the exact dimensions of his prison measuring both with his feet and his hands (fifteen-and-a-half feet lengths wide and eleven long), fingered the bars across the tiny window that had been sealed and painted over in grey, and picked at the blank panel that had replaced the overhead light switch. He grew attuned to the sounds of the house he was in and divined that he was on an upper floor, that the house was large, and that it was not isolated from civilization. And he thought.

Fastened to one place, he had been freed both from the cavalier buoyancy of his earlier disorientation and from the dragging weariness of his travel. And isolated from nearly all human contact, he found himself turning over in his mind all the things he had shied away from thinking about the people he had left behind.

It had surprised him in this place to realize he hated his father. It had been convenient, in the aftermath of the incident, to believe that defending Fred and Angel were a sufficient reason why he had fired at his father's face, again and again till he ran out of bullets. He had not even really believed it himself so much as allowed it to stand, like an integer, in his mental calculations, even though it brought no balancing weight to the wounded fury of his father when the story got back to him. With the clarity of his solitude, Wesley saw that he had been gratified by this response from his father even as it doubled his own horror. Was it possible that he had the power not just to disappoint his father but to hurt him? Was there some secret room, some mental space, in which he stood in his father's eyes as more than a chess piece or a substandard extension of himself and the family name? If so, Wesley thought, it was a room to which he would never be admitted except by accident; and he couldn't wait around for accidents to happen.

_Kindness is a heady wine_, Gillsworth had said, _and you don't know how to drink it_. In a way, that was certainly true. In another way, however, it wasn't kindness that he'd found intoxicating so much as what the kindness had proved about himself, that he was worth having around, that he was interesting and valuable and capable of bringing delight. And as Gillsworth had said, when that had been withdrawn, Wesley had had to act on the only honor he knew.

But that conundrum had passed him by. Angel was probably dead; Gunn almost certainly was so; everyone else had been dead long since. _Oh, Charles_.

_As loose as the wind, as large as store --_

He had to wait for no one's cue. He could decide what he wanted to do with the kindnesses he'd received -- and the unkindnesses. Sitting alone on the bare floor of his prison, his gaze serenely focused on the wall ahead, Wesley turned over the novel sensation of having an unfettered choice.

He laid out in his mind the circuits of his options. _You should know better than to give a Watcher an uninterrupted opportunity to play chess_, he thought at Dickinson.

He could try to break the wards; or he could wait for Dickinson's cohort to come back to hear his decision, reserving his energies for healing and waiting. When they came back for him, either the situation would be a fait accompli and he successfully kept out of the way while it happened, or they would want his participation. Presumably they would present him with further motivation to play the game their way. He could refuse anyway; or he could cooperate. If he cooperated, he could pretend that he shared their goals, or he could pretend to be cowardly and capitulating. The former, if he pulled it off, might get him more of a hand in the preparations; the latter (again, if he pulled it off) might take them more off their guard.

If he couldn't pull it off, they'd either re-imprison him or kill him. In which case he'd better be ready with his ambush from the outset.

This situation, he thought suddenly, was rather like the one that had got him killed in the first place. But while neither his acting nor his magic had been proof against Vail, it just might be proof against a crew of rogue Watchers. Also, Wesley had the new advantages of no longer having a deathwish, and a relatively unclouded heart and mind. And it was a highly amusing irony that he had feared being the pawn of Wolfram &amp; Hart in his resurrection, only to share interests with them in this matter and be unable to regret it.

It was also odd to be in a position of being grateful to practically everyone he'd ever met, and to be so without finding it galling. It was, in fact, quite restful.

Wesley stretched himself out on the cool floor and slept.

*

When Brian arrived at Pyke's Lea, Buffy opened the door to him, and as she did so the voices in the kitchen stopped. "C'mon," she said, "we're all in the kitchen."

She preceded him into the kitchen and sat down at the table: but Brian stopped in the doorway.

Elisabeth stood propped against one counter, Rupert against another; and in one of the kitchen-table chairs by the hearth sat Michael Robson.

"You!" Brian said.

Robson smiled dryly at him, an expression that looked entirely too smug for Brian's taste. Brian said to the room in general, "Since when do we let _him_ into the house?"

"Mr Whitaker," Robson said. "It's such a pleasure to see you again."

Since, strictly speaking, Robson and Brian had never actually met, this was a shot across Brian's bow, and he bristled; Buffy gave Brian a wry look and said, "We called the meeting because of his information."

"Yeah?" Brian said. "Well, we'll see how good it is." He pulled out the chair across from Buffy and plunked himself down. Elisabeth looked worried; Rupert cast a meaning look over at Buffy, who gave a tiny shrug.

"We'd better catch Brian up," Elisabeth said, and Rupert cleared his throat gently.

"Yes. The Council -- " Brian wondered how Rupert could bear to say that word without tasting bile -- "has come into possession of some information about a plot; and since it has some bearing on our work, Robson has kindly brought us the intelligence." The last part of that sentence was as heavy with irony as only Rupert could make it.

Brian frowned at him, then at Buffy. "I thought you said this has something to do with Pryce."

"It does," Buffy said grimly.

*

When Dickinson and his cohort returned to Wesley's prison room, Wesley was ready. In between pacing and thinking, he had sat in meditation with his back against a wall and worked the magic over in his fingers, relearning his incantations, feeling the unweighted sense of skill settling into its place. Yes, it was better without a deathwish in the mix.

He began to feel that he would succeed; and it came to him that whether he did or not, with this act he was not wishing for release but saying goodbye to the life he had known, with Angel, with Cordelia, Gunn, Lorne, and Fred; that he was not simply bereft from them, but had cast away the last rope.

It was possible after all, it seemed, to choose exile.

He heard the steps -- many feet -- coming and sat up. Time to be what he wished to project. He scrambled into the western corner of the room, away from the door, and drew his legs up protectively.

It was indeed Dickinson and the higher members of his conspiracy, wearing open black robes over their suits. He made a complicated gesture, and the overhead light sprang into sudden brilliance, throwing the light from the hall into relative dimness. Wesley flung an elbow against his face and blinked painfully.

"Well, Wesley," Dickinson said genially, "I'm sorry to keep you waiting so long, but I'm glad to report that the operation is nearly ready to perform. All we lack is your answer as to whether you would like to assist."

"You have the Scythe, then?" Wesley asked. He found it no difficulty at all to bring a tremor to his voice. It occurred to him that his long imprisonment would make him disoriented -- something he would have to work against, but also something he could use.

Nothing could dampen Dickinson's airy confidence. "We have determined that it won't be necessary."

Wesley dragged his elbow away from his eyes and squinted up at him. So Faith had got away; or something else had gone wrong with their attempt. With the light hurting his eyes, it was easy to look grieved and oppressed, and hide the smile that wanted to creep into view. Good for Faith. But they didn't have much foresight. Even with Buffy declawed, did they suppose that Willow would not go after the Scythe, to reinstate the Slayers? Or did they have a plan for attacking Willow herself?

"In fact," Dickinson went on, "We have everything in place. All we lack is your participation. That is, if you are both willing and able."

Wesley was able: he had not needed bandages for several days now, and even the bruise had begun to fade from the back of his head. Slowly, tremblingly, he got to his feet and stood facing them.

"If I help you," he said, "what do I get out of it?" His voice nearly broke on the words, and fresh water stung to his eyes. He didn't know where it came from: was it just good acting, or was he grieving something after all?

Whatever it was, it appeared to satisfy Dickinson. He said, "We could use your assistance reading over the spell progression. No doubt you've seen operations of this type before. If it succeeds, you would have a position with us, and, of course, our full support for your own researches."

What researches? Wesley thought, before remembering he had been looking for clues about his resurrection. But Dickinson's voice rang slightly false on that note; did he know more about it than he'd let on? Or did he suppose that offering (or pretending to offer) Wesley a destiny would be sufficient to occupy him?

Or was he planning to kill Wesley after all?

Wesley cleared his throat and attempted to look like he was gathering his threadbare dignity, which wasn't difficult. "First of all, I want a shower," he said. "And clothing."

*

Wesley did not get his shower, though he did get clothing -- of a sort. Dickinson offered him the use of one of their black robes, claiming that time was of the essence and the sooner they laid out the spell, the better. Wesley frowned as he took the robe and slipped it on: there were definitely variables here that he did not know. Perhaps they were afraid of being interrupted. Yes...that was a possibility. Wesley thought of Brian again, then made an effort not to, as if thinking of him would somehow alert Dickinson to his vulnerability. _Do stay out of sight, Whitaker_, he thought. _You don't deserve to be harmed by this._

"Don't worry," Dickinson said, "once the working is finished, you'll get proper clothes." Wesley gave him no answer, just fixed him with a cold bleary stare and hoped he looked browbeaten rather than the way he increasingly felt, which was annoyed.

The Watchers escorted Wesley along a dimly-lit corridor and down an old flight of creaking stairs. He'd surmised that the house was an old one, and was pleased to see his deductions justified.

They led him through a set of double doors into a large, opulent room. The furniture and rugs had been cleared to the perimeter and a large circle painstakingly drawn in several colors on the bare boards. Quickly and carefully, Wesley read the circle. The figures that ought to be in the center were still unchalked, but the outer ones were backwards to their usual progression. Backwards. Yes: it was meant to be a literal reverse of Willow's work, drawing the power out of the many Slayers back through the Scythe to Willow as a curse, and, they presumably hoped, both killing her and destroying the Scythe. If the spell were strong enough, it would tear away the Slayer's power and give it into the hands of -- yes, that was what they were missing, the runes that would capture the loose power and repose it in the rogue Watchers' girl.

And there was the girl, standing quietly to the side under guard: she was small and dark-haired, and wearing a white robe. Wesley wondered if she was a Slayer, or a Potential who had not yet bloomed into her power, or simply a girl they had brought under their sway. He wanted to ask her name, and the urge was only intensified when she looked at him in a sort of numb curiosity. He must be an odd sight, he thought: a bearded, unwashed man clutching a robe inadequately around himself. Even so, there was something stupid about her gaze, as if she were drugged; Wesley wondered if that was the look he had presented to his father when trying to think fast enough to keep up with the next insult.

Wesley had shot at his father. That fact had distracted him for a long time, and now it occurred to him that he had shot _through_ his father at these bastards, whether he meant to or not. Would the girl be driven to that pass? Wesley wished he knew her; he could willingly play the bastard for her if he thought she'd play up. He could play the bastard anyway; his annoyance was hardening into cold fury, at the girl, at the circle, at these Watchers and their petty hubris, at the Council, at himself.

"As you can see," Dickinson was saying to him, "the last part of the circle will need to be very carefully drawn. We can't afford a mistake."

"You're taking a great risk not having the Scythe and the original mage present," Wesley said. "Power can be diffused over such great distances. Do you have enough people present who can anchor this?"

"Well, that's partly where you'll come in," Dickinson said. "And of course, it is a truism that people who have power are unlikely to be cooperative if you wish to take it away, even in a good cause."

Honestly: did Dickinson really believe he was acting for the best? Wesley frowned hard at the circle.

Dickinson ushered him to a table at the side where several books lay open with a scatter of notes among them. One of the Watchers was reading over a chart, pencil in hand, but allowed Wesley to view it when he approached.

"You're using the _Book of Ea_," Wesley observed.

"Yes," Dickinson said from over his shoulder, "it seemed quite the best source."

Wesley found their copy of the Ea translation and turned a few pages, thinking; then looked up into the empty distance and thought some more. "Marduk," he murmured. He felt Dickinson waiting, and said, "There's a rare volume called the _Plays of Marduk_ that contains runes handed down from Marduk himself. They were a great mystery, and those runes were written down at the cost of many lives. Have you heard of it?"

"Yes," Dickinson said. "I've had a look at a copy once, though I don't own it myself."

Wesley nodded. "The runes are subtly different to the ones used in the mysteries of Ea. The key ones, of course, are -- " he took up a scrap of paper and a pencil and drew three runes without connecting their final strokes.

"Ye-es," Dickinson said. "Quite. And which order of placement should they have?"

Wesley paused, staring at the runes. He knew a way to place them that would throw the entire spell in disarray; but if he suggested it, would they know what he was up to? And if they didn't, and went through with the spell, Wesley didn't know what would happen, only that it would be catastrophic. Wesley decided to risk it. "This one," he said, pointing to the third rune, "with the first to its east and the second to its west."

He waited, but the Watchers around him merely nodded their heads. "I see," Dickinson said, "to make an opposing anchor in the wheel. The counter-intuitive is always the best. Many thanks," and he looked on Wesley with such an unaffectedly pleased smile that Wesley was nearly physically ill with revulsion.

*

When they all began taking their place in the completed circle, Wesley decided it was long past time for him to escape. Without him in the circle the Watchers might delay the working long enough for Wesley to get a message to the Council and to Buffy; the circle would certainly be weaker without him; and Wesley was finding it more and more difficult to control the visceral distaste for the whole enterprise that threatened to surface in his behavior. Besides, he had no desire to die in the sabotage of a wicked spell. That was a hero's act, and Wesley was finished with heroism.

He observed where Dickinson took his place in the circle -- not with his back to the door, the canny bastard -- and claimed the place next to him. They placed the girl in the center, atop the rune Wesley had deliberately misplaced, and closed the circle around her. Wesley thought, _Child, you'd do better to run right now._

When the stillness began to settle among the Watchers in the circle, he took one large deliberate step back. He brought down the heel of his hand in a striking gesture, closing his eyes, and heard the grunts of the others as the snap of blinding light he'd thrown took them in the face. By the time their vision was clear, he had placed his hand very near the nape of Dickinson's neck, and the magic began to rise in visible radiation from the heart of his hand to the fingertips and outward.

Dickinson stood very still. Wesley was pleased to see the edges of his fine salt-and-pepper hair grow damp.

"If you would be so kind as to see me to the door," Wesley said, "I believe it is time for me to be going."

As much by Wesley's power as his own, Dickinson took a backward step out of the circle, and then kept walking backward in front of Wesley as they drew to the doors of the room. By the time they reached it, Dickinson had recovered his composure and spoke calmly. "You're making a mistake, you know," he said.

"Hmm," Wesley said. "Well, be that as it may, I have, as you said, some work of my own to attend to, and I must regret giving this event a miss."

Dickinson laughed, a strangled sound. "What? Don't you know yet why Wolfram &amp; Hart brought you back?"

Wesley had no intention of taking the bait. "I find myself oddly incurious on that point," he said.

"I haven't told them where you are," Dickinson said. "They seem to have lost track of you somehow. Where will you go? Do you think that the Council will believe your story? Or your new friends in Oxford? You'd do best to kill me; you'll regret it otherwise."

Wesley thought about it for a brief moment. "You are right: I probably would regret not killing you. But then again, I'd likely also regret it if I did. Therefore I can do whatever I like. Aren't you curious as to what that is?" Wesley had learned a few things from Angel besides hairstyling and chutzpah: he felt Dickinson submerge a recoil at the croon in Wesley's soft voice.

"Is there a guard at the door?" Wesley asked, with his fingers very close to Dickinson's nape.

"No, we needed all our manpower," Dickinson said. It sounded like truth.

"Oh, that reminds me," Wesley said gently. "I would advise you to read your spell over very carefully before you proceed." At the last word he shoved Dickinson magically, hard enough to propel him into the other men and break the circle. Before they could retaliate, Wesley was out the doors and had sealed them behind him. It would take them a few minutes to break the spell to come after him, but he had no time to waste.

He darted down the main corridor of the dark house, opted at the last minute for an indirect exit, and shot into a small parlor off the vestibule, in case Dickinson had lied to him and had a guard in front. Within a few minutes he had let himself out an unbarred side window into a garden, where he crept along shrubs to a gate.

Outside the gate was an old and venerable street, unlit except at an intersection far down the line in one direction, and a bridge in the other. Wesley tasted the late hour in the damp air. He needed to get right away very quickly, and the bridge looked the most promising direction. Casting a glamour over himself like a cloak, he pursued his barefoot way quickly but carefully down the dark street. Perhaps he'd be able to tell by the signs at the bridge whether he was still in France. As he approached, the last house gave way to a rising view of gridded streets lit brightly though less dazzlingly than they would have been at an earlier hour; and at a distance, a dark and bright shape that even Wesley's naked eye could make out, rising to an unmistakable pinnacle.

The Eiffel Tower.

"Well," Wesley said softly, "that's a help."

*

"Let me get this straight," Brian said. "You've been tracking Pryce across Europe. You haven't found him, but you _did_ catch wind of this plot to steal the Slayers' power. Which obviously hasn't come off yet. So what's stopping it, and if nothing has stopped it, why are we sitting here discussing it?"

Brian had packed away his hostility as best he could, and his voice in his own ears was flat but reasonable. He had another question ready behind the first, and he didn't want to tip his hand to Robson -- or Buffy, for that matter.

"Oh, nothing has stopped it," Robson said calmly. "They carried it out." Brian glanced at Buffy, who looked very grim, and with good reason, he thought. "That's how we found them, in fact," Robson went on. "The spell they cast backfired somehow, and their house burned to the ground in the early hours of this morning. Our man in Paris investigated the incident and called in reinforcements. We managed to capture Carlyle Dickinson alive and question him before he lost consciousness. It seems fairly clear that he was high up in the conspiracy, but it will take some time and effort to get the whole truth out of him.

"And that is where you come in," Robson said. All four of them reacted: Elisabeth and Brian snorted generously, Buffy narrowed her eyes, and Rupert tilted his head and regarded Robson with the thinnest of smiles.

"I think we come into it slightly sooner than that," Rupert said, with dry understatement.

"In my narrative, I meant, of course," Robson said, smiling back at Rupert in a way that made Brian's hackles rise again. "We know you've had some dealings with Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, and with your help, the sooner we find him the sooner we can solve this problem completely."

"I don't follow," Brian said. "What has Pryce got to do with it?" Which was the question he'd been waiting to ask.

For the first time Robson regarded him directly, with a curious look. "According to Dickinson, Wesley was an integral part of the planning for the spell. He had a high place in the circle and an intimate role in the conspiracy."

For a second Brian simply stared. Then he said, "But this is fantastic. What possible motive would Pryce have to steal the Slayers' power? He -- " Brian stopped, realizing that to reveal anything of Wesley's purposes to Robson was to betray him.

"Dickinson suggested," Robson said, "that Wesley was brought back by Wolfram &amp; Hart for just such a purpose. Certainly he's managed to set all of Watcherdom by the ears so thoroughly that it may as well have been planned."

Rupert's lips twitched humorously, but Brian didn't see anything funny about it. "I don't see why you should be believing anything this Dickinson bloke says. And what about you? Why shouldn't you be cheering them on? How do we know the Council isn't up for a spot of Slayer-demoting?" And letting Wesley be the convenient fall-guy, he refrained from saying.

Buffy folded her arms and stared levelly at Robson. "You know, he does have a point."

They all waited. Finally Robson sighed. "You insist on imputing the worst possible motives to the Watchers' Council. It's true that our fortunes fell quite low after the Harrowing and its sequel. And you could hardly deny that having hundreds of Slayers abroad on the earth increases the amount of chaos in our dimension." He waited, but no one replied, and he went on. "But unlike the rogue Watchers in question, the Council understands that it is better to bring order from within chaos, rather than to impose it from without." Again he looked at Rupert, and this time it was Elisabeth who bristled. Before she could speak, Robson said: "Quite apart from the personal suffering dealt to the Slayers, imagine the evil that would come from suddenly removing the protection they offer to the people in their communities. It's not to be thought of. We were made to watch and to protect. That's the mandate of our heritage; we know better than to go beyond it."

There was a silence in the room. Then Buffy spoke, with an even, clear anger in her voice that made Brian brace his feet on the floor. "As a survivor of the Cruciamentum, I would like to point out -- "

Brian didn't know what that word meant, but he could feel its effect on every person in the room: there was a collective hiss of breath and a rigidity, as if in the next moment tables would be overturned. Robson's eyes burned. Then Buffy went on. "I would like to point out that I heard pretty much the opposite from Quentin Travers on more than one occasion. And I'm not talking about when he was the First."

Robson said hardily, "I know what Quentin Travers liked to say. But when the Slayers were in our care -- "

"-- they died," Buffy said.

"They die just as surely in yours, do they not?"

"Not your responsibility any more."

Robson forced himself to draw a long breath. "No. You are right. And if you will not accept my word on our good intentions, perhaps you will accept that we recognize there has been a fundamental change. It is not simply a logistical matter to control one Slayer or one thousand, unless we were prepared for open war with all of your people, and we are not. The fact that I have been in contact with you ought to suggest that much."

Robson and Buffy locked gazes for a long moment. Then she said, "You are asking us for help catching your rogues."

"That's beyond my authority to ask," Robson said, but Brian could see that something in him had relaxed, as if in relief. He wasn't sure exactly where this was headed, but it looked like there was going to be agreement: and an agreement at Wesley's expense.

Elisabeth must have been thinking along similar lines, because she said, "But honestly, do you really think that Wesley was a consenting member of these rogues' conspiracy?"

Robson shrugged. "On its own Dickinson's testimony is not sufficient. But there's evidence that he was on the scene. He's refused to keep in one place long enough to be questioned. But he might simply have been caught up at the wrong place in the wrong time. Do you think that more likely?"

"Yes," Elisabeth said, and, "It seems to be a simpler explanation," Rupert added, "given that he hasn't been resurrected for very long."

"True," Robson said thoughtfully. "Perhaps we can follow up on some of his recent contacts and see what trail he was following. Of course, we'll be working to get information out of the men we've captured to work the problem from the other end. And I expect you've got the Scythe in safe keeping by now?"

Buffy and Rupert exchanged glances. "It's covered," Buffy said coolly. "I take it we're into the logistics now."

Robson smiled suddenly. "I do beg your pardon," he said. "I've gotten ahead of myself."

"It's going to be a long negotiation," Buffy promised him.

"And I am heartily looking forward to it," Robson said.

Brian had had enough. "Yes, and meanwhile," he said loudly, "Pryce is _missing_. D'you think some time soon we might focus on _that_?"

Robson's gaze returned to Brian, with renewed interest. "You seem to take an avid interest in his welfare."

"You seem like you don't," Brian said, not bothering to conceal his truculence any longer.

Robson prefaced his reply with a mild head-tilt that made Brian think of Rupert's gestures with fondness by comparison. "Of course, I am interested in my cousin's welfare," he said, "but I've been forced to think of larger issues -- "

"Yes, yes," Brian said, "the greater good, the many over the one, the sacrifice of the individual, some other individual than oneself, I notice -- I've heard it all before."

He'd managed to anger the man. Good. "Our heritage calls for some grievous sacrifices," Robson said coldly.

"In case you haven't noticed," Brian retorted, "I don't think much of your heritage. Pryce is a better example of your heritage than the whole bloody lot of you -- "

"Brian -- " Elisabeth said, but Brian wasn't listening; he caught Rupert's gaze and bored into it with his own.

"You pick your sacrificial lamb -- "

"Brian -- " Brian didn't look Elisabeth's way; he kept his gaze on Rupert, who made no attempt to gainsay him but accepted the accusation without flinching.

"-- and you take responsibility, but it doesn't mean a damn thing -- "

"_Brian_," -- and this time Brian heard the pain in Elisabeth's voice. He broke off and dropped his gaze into his lap, where his hands lay clenched on his thighs. With an effort he straightened them out and laid them flat and trembling against the fabric of his trousers. The silence in the room was complete.

"I'm sorry," Brian said finally. "I think I'd better absent myself from the remainder of this meeting." Wearily he began to get to his feet.

"You don't have to go," Rupert said. The words were simple, but their very sincerity made Brian tremble with an emotion he couldn't put a name to.

"No, I must," he said. "I can't contribute anything more. Forgive me," he said to Elisabeth, and went out into the hall, still breathing hard. "Don't bother sending to Rome," he muttered savagely, "Charles of Valois is already at the gate."

He turned at the door to see that Elisabeth had followed him into the foyer. "Brian -- "

"I'm sorry," he said. "I'll talk to you later, all right?" Without waiting for her reply, he jerked open the door and shot himself out into the twilight. He heard the door close slowly behind him as he strode down the brick walk to his car; but he paused just beyond the open casement of the kitchen window to listen to the voices within.

"What was that he said?" Rupert asked.

Elisabeth sighed. "I don't know. Something about Charles of Valois."

"The Landless," Robson said with his own sigh. "I don't think he's likely to change his view of us any time soon."

Well, at least he'd made one thing clear. Brian stopped listening and moved on.

But the door opened and shut behind him, and as there was only one person whose voice he hadn't heard, Brian knew who it was coming after him with quick steps. He moved faster, but when it was clear she would catch him up, he rounded on her. "Look," he began.

"No, _you_ look," Buffy said. "I once had to choose between killing my lover and letting the world end, so if you want to give the Watchers crap about sacrificing other people, just know you're giving it to me, too."

"Well, did you suffer?" Brian asked, glaring at her.

She glared back. "What do you think?"

Which as far as Brian was concerned set her apart from the Watchers, but he was not in the mood for fine distinctions. "I'm not going to watch Wesley be made into a damn scapegoat," he said. "I want him back alive and well and exonerated, even if you don't."

"I don't have a beef with Wesley," Buffy said, folding her arms and pinning Brian with a hard stare. "And I'm willing to believe he didn't join the conspiracy. But if you want me to say that the Slayers aren't more important to me, I'm sorry, but they are."

"I can't go find him myself," Brian said, his voice going raw. "I don't know how. But if no one will help me -- "

Buffy's face changed, and she dropped her arms. "Geez. You really did fall hard, didn't you?"

"I didn't mean to." Brian plowed a hand angrily through his hair. "And it's a bloody nuisance. I don't know how people stand it. This was not -- " He stopped, drew a breath, and started over. "I didn't start out wanting to render myself _hors de combat_; but -- my priorities -- " He looked away from her into the deepening dusk.

"I don't blame you for the oar thing," Buffy said, and Brian barked a reluctant laugh. "But just...try to trust me, okay? It's not like I _want_ to see other people go through what I've been through."

He looked back at her then, appraisingly. "And when it was the life of someone _you_ loved on the line?"

"I made the biggest stink in the Western Hemisphere," Buffy answered comfortably. "Till Will surpassed me. Just ask Giles." Brian snorted, and she said, "Seriously."

"I'll take your word for it." She had released him from her gaze, and he moved again toward his car.

"Call me," Buffy said. "We'll talk tomorrow. And be careful. There are rogue Watchers on the loose."

"Who are totally different from the regular kind, I _swear_," Brian said at his open car door, and made an extravagant gesture. It got a laugh from Buffy, which gratified Brian enough to ease him.

He started the car and brought the headlights up; Buffy waved in the beam and turned back to the house.

*

Wesley's first move, on getting some distance on the Watchers in the streets of Paris, was to break into a church.

He hoped it wasn't a terribly obvious move, but a church would be the most likely place to have nearly all of what he needed in one location. And so it proved. From the donations box he found a toiletry kit with soap and safety razor, as well as a box of biscuits which he wolfed down in his searches through the rest of the dark building, his bare feet making no noise on flagstone or carpet. In the tiny bathroom off the sacristy he washed himself as best he could at the sink and trimmed his growth of beard down to a sleek goatee. He left his hair the length it was, deciding that it was better for it to look natural than try to cut it himself.

The donations box, disappointingly, did not contain any undergarments bound for the less fortunate, or any clothing but toddlers' onesies. But a long thick alb from the sacristy covered that deficiency; with the black cloth of his robe artfully cut, folded, and cinctured around him for a scapular, he could pass for a Cistercian at a pinch. It was not an ideal disguise; anyone would remark on a monk walking down the street. But at least they wouldn't be remarking on a wild man in nothing but a black robe padding around bare-legged in town. Wesley added a wood cross on a cord of black silk round his neck to complete the effect. Crosses were always useful.

He took care to do all things that needed light in the little bathroom, and shut it off before opening the door. Having been sealed in near-darkness for days, his night vision was good enough for the rest. He found a pair of sandals in a corner which had been abandoned wet and left to stiffen, and took them with him when he went to break into the church office.

It was here that there might be a burglar alarm: after using the same magical move to unsnap the wards of the lock that he'd used on the vestry door, Wesley let the office door fall open, listening. If there was an alarm it was a silent one, so Wesley moved ahead inside, prepared to bolt whenever necessary.

His brain had been busily working as he put together his new guise, formulating his next move. His false identity was gone; Dickinson had Weston Blake's passport in addition to Wesley's own ID and the business cards of Giles and Brian. He could presume that all the contacts made by Weston Blake would be compromised. So no resources there. Brian couldn't hide him, and was all too likely in danger himself. Dickinson had threatened to denounce him to the Council, which he might be doing at this very moment. Which meant by extension that he couldn't expect to show up on Buffy's doorstep and expect clemency, not if he were suspected of tampering with her Slayers. And if she wouldn't kill him on the spot, Willow Rosenberg would. Provided the rogues' spell failed. Wesley could only hope it had, even if it meant he'd sawn off his own branch.

He knew where he wanted to go. But he needed help to get there.

Wesley's thoughts ran like a tongue over teeth, swiftly. Places, names, contact numbers -- _read, memorize, destroy._ In the moment he made his decision his hand was already reaching for the telephone handset.

Wesley waited through the connections, until at last the voice he was hoping for came on the line. "Yes?"

He cleared his throat. "Good morning, Madam Gillsworth," he said politely. "This is Pryce here."

"Oh, Wesley," she said delightedly, "the man of the hour. Where is 'here,' precisely?"

"Where the carcass is, there the vultures will gather."

"I see," she said. "And to what do I owe the privilege of this call?"

"I'm looking for resources," Wesley said. "I am currently without identification or funds, and I wish to travel."

"I see," she said again. "Would this, then, be the appropriate occasion for blackmail?"

Wesley laughed softly. "This would be the perfect occasion for blackmail. I am at your mercy."

Gillsworth had a lovely throaty laugh. "Very well then. I assume you want my silence toward all interested parties."

"Correct," Wesley said.

"And what will you give me in exchange for all this extravagance?"

"How about Zachary Dennison's list?" Wesley said.

She was silent for a moment. "You've decided to trust me," she said finally. "How very interesting. Would you care to tell me why?"

"A number of reasons," Wesley said. "But chiefly: you have a great-granddaughter."

"Hmm," Gillsworth said, neither agreeing nor disagreeing but waiting.

"And I don't have time to go round the list myself putting people on their guard."

"Yes," she said. "I just had an earful from Junior Knowles ten minutes ago. It seems the rumors I've been hearing this summer are quite fact. I told you not to go stirring up that hornet's nest, if you recall."

"I will take care to listen better in future," Wesley said, with an unctuous humility that made Gillsworth chuckle again.

"Well, then, listen carefully now. I don't have all the details yet, but there's a house currently burning to the ground, a dead girl and several dead Watchers, and a few live ones in hospital, one of which is Dickinson. The Council is keeping an eye on Dickinson, who managed to point the finger your way before going out cold -- how very convenient -- and Knowles wanted to know, have I seen you recently?"

Wesley paused to swallow his gorge, thinking of the dead girl. "They're quick off the mark," he said. "Only a few hours."

"They must have heard the same rumors I have. And have been on the alert for magical disturbances. If you want my advice, stay out of sight and don't use any strong magic."

"Thank you. With your help I can do both of those things."

"Very well." Gillsworth suggested an address and a name where Wesley might obtain the things he needed, and from which he could next contact her.

"I'll be there as soon as day breaks," Wesley said.

"This is the point at which I could easily betray you," Gillsworth pointed out.

"Yes," Wesley said. "I'll just have to see, won't I?"

"Brave lad," Gillsworth chuckled. "Pathetic the way Roger's deceived himself." No one had put it to him quite like that before, and so for the first time Wesley heard it as other than idle flattery.

"_Pax vobiscum_," he said softly, and pressed down the hook with a firm finger.

*

Brian didn't go straight home. He wanted to think, and his thoughts were not cheerful. He went to the Black Key and settled himself in a dark booth with his back to a wall, and set to work on a pint of bitter.

He found that a nonspecific annoyance had settled around his thoughts about Wesley: no longer irritation about Wesley or in concern for Wesley, but _at_ him. It wasn't simply that he was missing, or that he was a Watcher embroiled with Watchers, or that he had made no contact with Brian or Rupert or anyone else, though it included all of those things. Though Brian couldn't bring it to consciousness in so many words, the fact that Wesley had provoked love in him and made him to feel helpless was a difficult one to swallow in and of itself.

_I have to figure out what to do_, was the only coherent thought he could bring to mind.

Buffy had asked him to trust her, and he did of course, but she'd also said the Slayers were higher priority, so any real decisions were going to be his. Robson had said Dickinson had insinuated that Wolfram &amp; Hart was responsible for Wesley's return, which was more information than anyone else had given up so far, and not good news no matter how you looked at it.

To find Wesley embroiled in a Watcher plot was one thing; to find him in thrall to a multidimensional evil law firm was something else again. Even with help, Brian might not be able to pull him clear. What was it like, he wondered suddenly, to have to kill your lover to save the world? How would one do that without being a raving lunatic ever after?

"How preposterous the whole thing is," Brian said aloud. He upended his glass and drained the last frothed drops of bitter, then got up abruptly and went out.

*

Surely it was his imagination that that car was shadowing him back into town? Certainly Buffy had warned him about rogue Watchers, but he had dismissed it in his mind, thinking he would be unknown to them. But was that true anymore? Wesley had gone among them and not been heard of again. Any information Wesley had held might be vulnerable now, including the fact that Brian was the "friend" who had been custodian of half a tomb rubbing, for however short a time.

Brian couldn't believe that Wesley would willingly betray him, but that didn't mean he was safe.

A single image of his flat came to mind, its entrance made blind by shadows and the corners of the breezeway, and almost without thought Brian decided to spend the night at Magdalen instead.

By the time he had hoofed it down Longwall and was approaching the porter's lodge, Brian was certain there was something to his premonitions. He had not yet heard footsteps, but twice he had seen moving shadows and once heard the sound of caught breath.

He was getting more pissed off by the minute.

It was Sims on duty at the porter's lodge. Good. He could use someone competent about. He tipped him off nonchalantly to the possibility of unauthorized persons lurking about the grounds, pretended he wasn't coming in at an ungodly hour himself, and went on out into the quad.

The shadows seemed to become uniformly malignant, which he had never experienced before in this place, and it made him angrier. "Fuck with me anywhere else," he murmured to himself, "but don't fuck with me in Oxford." His long legs ate up the distance in quick strides, but he was ready when a sudden shadow came at him from the greater darkness cast by the Cloister. Punch first, apologize later, was the directive in Brian's pulses, and he let go with a right hook that connected satisfyingly with someone's face. He was ready to sail in against another shadow coming right behind, but was knocked staggering by a large figure who barreled past him and into the others. He recovered his feet and returned to the battle, only to be shoved again by the large man and pushed clear of the melee. Before he could get back into it, the knot of struggle suddenly broke apart with a shout, and the first two men went pelting back down the quad with the larger shadow close behind. In the same instant that they disappeared, a set of bright lights came up, and Sims came panting up to Brian with torch bobbing.

"Well, you were right at that, Mr Whitaker," he said. "There's some folks around that didn't ought to be here. Didn't get a good look at them, but I've alerted the police. They'll patrol the perimeter for a few hours and see if they can pick 'em up. Are you hurt at all?"

"No, I'm fine," Brian said, licking his skinned knuckles. "I'll be getting along to my rooms now. Call if you need me."

"I'll do that. Thanks for the information."

Brian gave him a mordant grin. "Thanks for the lights and the backup."

Sims gave him a wave and Brian continued on his way across the lawns to his rooms. Not caring whether he made noise, he punished the stairs with his feet on the way up. And his senses must have been on residual alert, because when he unlocked his door and turned on the light, his hand was already reaching for the heavy Old French lexicon on the side table in the same instant that he saw Robson waiting complacently in the corner.

Robson lifted his hands in unhurried surrender as Brian prepared to lob the thick book at his head.

There was a brief silence in which Brian glared murderously and Robson stared patiently back. In the end Brian didn't throw the book; but he didn't put it down either.

"Am I going to have to start going about armed?" Brian demanded, taking out the change in sarcasm. "What is this rubbish?"

"Might not be a bad idea," Robson said mildly. "As you may have noticed, Oxford is not exactly inviolable."

_No shit_, Brian thought. "How did you get in here?"

Robson chose to ignore the blatant subtext of _And why aren't you leaving?_ "Time was," he said, "I would have showed your porter some very impressive identification and had him let me in to wait for you. As it is -- I picked the lock."

Brian gave him his most unimpressed look, which also did not work on Watchers, it seemed.

"You're an historian," Robson said. "I'm sure you understand what happens when people lose power. Some lose their compass and try to get it back by underhanded means; and some merely break into the offices of harmless Oxford dons."

Brian was not going to ask Robson why. "As an explanation," he said coolly, "this leaves me oddly unsympathetic."

"I'm not here after your sympathy."

With as much sarcasm as humanly possible, Brian quirked an eyebrow at him, waiting for the rest.

"I'm here to ask if you would be willing to accept our protection."

Surprised, Brian tilted his head back and regarded him probingly. "Why bother to ask?" he said, after a moment. "That big fellow in the quad was yours, wasn't he?"

"Yes," Robson said. He gave Brian a narrow sideways look, as if he were thinking. "You present me with somewhat of an interesting problem, Mr Whitaker."

"Always glad to be of service," Brian said, and Robson smiled briefly.

"I understand from the context of some of the remarks at our meeting that you and my cousin have struck up a close friendship," Robson said.

Brian narrowed his eyes at him. "That's as may be," he said.

"Which from one point of view would seem to be a point in Wesley's favor, as you are unlikely in the best of circumstances to form a friendship with a Watcher of any stripe."

Brian allowed himself a faint snort, but made no other reply.

"From our point of view, of course, it means that you are also unlikely to be...copacetic, shall we say, with our methods of dealing with strayed Watchers when it comes to him."

Brian's gaze hardened: but still he waited.

"And yet it would be foolish to leave you out of account. Certainly the rogues who attacked you tonight have not. You are seen as a point of vulnerability for Wesley...and therefore also a point of strength." Robson opened his hands, and then let them drop. "Thus my asking if you will allow us to protect you."

"Why should I object?" _Why should I bother objecting?_ was what Brian meant, and this time Robson did not ignore the subtext.

"If we pursue your attackers, and if they lead us to Wesley...."

And this time the implication was clear: if Brian cooperated with the Council's protection, he was potentially signing off on whatever they might choose to do to Wesley if they found him. It was the only help he might be likely to get to pull Wesley clear of Wolfram &amp; Hart: but his risen gorge held Brian silent.

"I did mention this to Miss Summers, by the way," Robson said. "It would not be against my interests if you consulted her."

It was a clever conciliation, but still Brian could say nothing.

Robson said more gently, "If he is your friend, wanting to protect him is admirable."

At last Brian found his voice. He put down the book deliberately on the side table, then cleared his throat and spoke calmly. "You're telling me that admirable acts are an unaffordable luxury for you. I quite understand. Now are we finished, or would you like to condescend to me some more?"

"No, I've quite reached my quota for the day," Robson said dryly. "I'll say good night now. Consult with Miss Summers if you wish; I'll be in contact." He moved forward and would have slipped past Brian out the door, except that Brian put out a sudden hand and braced it on the doorjamb, boxing him in.

Their faces were close. Brian was the taller man, but meeting the other eye to eye, he knew it was his only advantage. Robson waited, and finally Brian said quietly: "If you're looking for something to admire about me, I would like you to know that I am being very, very patient."

He let the message sink in for a moment; then took his arm away from the door and let Robson pass. They each gave a nod, and Brian closed the door, pressing his hands flat against it and letting his eyes fall shut for a long breath.

*

It was a long night, and Brian didn't sleep. He sat at his desk gritty-eyed, with his forehead braced on his palm and his hair permanently awry, and stared down at the letter Wesley had sent him. If he gave the Council his cooperation, he would very likely cease to be "my dear Whitaker." Would that matter, if it meant Wesley was safe? Wesley had trusted him with these items -- and their provenance -- but one couldn't press that trust very far. Swallowing his pride was one thing; letting Brian take the Council into his and Wesley's confidence was quite another.

Nor was applying to Buffy going to be any better, if she was going to reach an alliance with the Council, however temporary. He would, of course, speak to her and see what she thought of Robson's gambit; but the decision before him went further than that. He turned over the credit card; turned it over again.

"God damn it, Pryce," he said softly, "where _are_ you?"

*

In less time than he would have thought possible, Wesley found himself on a large jet bound for Tokyo, dressed in fresh nondescript Western clothing, stuffing his head with language library audio in an effort to refresh his smattering of Japanese. He expected a very difficult task before him. When she wasn't sabotaging her own purposes by trailing wreckage and mayhem everywhere she went, Faith was pretty good at not being anywhere when she didn't want to be found. Nor did he think she would be particularly open to letting Wesley Wyndam-Pryce find her, if she knew he was looking. The only hope Wesley had to go on was the fact that Dickinson had failed to get the Scythe; but by corollary, it was clear that Dickinson had men on the ground in Japan, and Wesley would need to be on the alert for them. Wesley hoped they were Western men and would stick out in the crowd as glaringly as he.

He could have asked himself why he was bothering with this, except that there was not much to tease himself with on that point. He'd sprung a trap intended for the Slayers, and it only seemed right to finish the job. _You don't have one_, Sister Melita had said of his destiny; but he'd found some work to do, and that seemed enough for the moment.

He slept, and woke again when the flight began its descent. He felt, oddly, as though his time up in the air had released him -- or completed the sense of release he had felt while imprisoned by the Watchers. He was a free agent; and even though he was acting from a sense of duty, he had begun to feel a curiosity toward this duty, as though it invited him to think creatively.

And patiently, he reminded himself as he worked his way to Kyoto and the next stage of his search. Wesley could read hiragana, but most of the kanji he knew were lore-related, and it hampered his ability to communicate, so that he bought the wrong train ticket and then had to retrace his steps to another train line. Nor, when he finally arrived in Kyoto during a blistering rainstorm, did he find it easy to locate the man who had been acting as Faith's translator with only his name to go on. There were several men of that name, and following up on each inquiry, Wesley found that the people he spoke with all a) seemed to think that finding him another translator would be the most helpful thing to do and b) passed him eventually along to another neighborhood or city block or office without giving Wesley any clue as to whether he should give up on that avenue of search. Wesley began to wonder if he hadn't actually landed himself in Scotland on April Fool's, when on his third day in Kyoto he struck a number of people in the older part of town who also offered to find him a different translator and wished to pass him along, but did so with nervous glances and guarded voices.

"No, you don't understand," Wesley said carefully. "I am looking for this man in particular. He was serving as a contact between me and..." he groped for an innocuous word -- " -- my student."

The man and woman behind the market counter looked at one another in wordless conversation; then the man turned back to Wesley. "Then I regret very much what I have to tell you," he said.

"The man you speak of is dead."

*

When the sun rose, Brian got up from his desk, washed and changed, and drove back out to Pyke's Lea. It was very early and the morning light was still at a golden slant through the leaves of the front orchard, but there was a light on in the kitchen, and so Brian knocked with confidence.

Elisabeth answered the door, still in her pajamas, with her blue robe open and unfastenable in front. He looked her apologetically in the face and said, "I need to speak with Buffy. Is she up?"

Elisabeth nodded. "She's in the kitchen." She tipped her head to invite him in, and as he passed her she took his hand and gave it a forgiving squeeze. He squeezed back and let go.

Buffy was sitting at the kitchen table also in robe and pajamas, her hair knotted in a slept-in ponytail. She didn't look surprised to see him. "Coffee?" she asked.

Brian shook his head, sitting down across from her. "You look like you could use it," Buffy said, but Brian was too focused on his mission to trifle with distractions.

"I need to talk to you," he said.

"I guess Robson got a hold of you last night?"

"Yes," Brian said. "I managed to put him off till I talked to you." He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the letter and enclosures in their envelope. It was the gentlest betrayal he could think of. He pushed the envelope wordlessly across the table to Buffy, and watched while she opened it and read its contents. She looked up at him a few times during her examination, and Brian regarded her without expression, waiting.

Finally she put down the letter and the cards, and looked up at Brian with a very small, gentle smile. Brian cast his eyes down, suddenly feeling his lack of sleep.

Buffy pulled her mobile out of the pocket of her robe, flipped it open, and dialed a speed number. "Will?" she said, and listened for a few moments. "Yeah," she said finally. "Listen. How soon do you think you can get here?"

*

Wesley wasn't sure exactly how he'd managed to get the merchant and his wife to trust him, except that he found he had a knack for the Japanese style of common deference, and didn't mangle their tongue as badly as other Englishmen they had encountered. In any event, he was now in the back room sipping a cup of tea and listening as best he could to the rapid-fire conversation of an assortment of people who had come to put in their contribution to Wesley's pool of information. He decided to take the plunge and ask about Faith herself.

"Perhaps you've met my student," Wesley said. "She's a young American. Her name is Faith."

They looked blank, even when he repeated the name carefully several times. Then finally one young man's eyes widened in comprehension. He turned to the others, and a whisper of "Feisu-han" was passed among them in a wild tangle of Japanese that Wesley couldn't follow. But another name emerged, a female name which Wesley had not memorized on Dennison's list, but the significance of which he could guess: Morimoto Satsuki.

At last the young man turned back to Wesley, his expression grimly apologetic.

"I fear, sir, that we have nothing but bad news to give you today. Your student Feisu-han has been gone for many days now. She left soon after a young woman in our community disappeared. Her family had forbidden her any more associations with...Americans," he finished, very apologetic now; Wesley could guess the truth, and nodded, equally grim. "We do not like to speculate on where Miss Morimoto has gone. But the rumor is...." He winced.

"The rumor?" Wesley prompted, gently.

"Yes," the young man said, growing more and more uncomfortable. "We think Feisu-han may have followed her...to Aokigahara." At the mention of the word, the others grew very close-lipped.

"Can you tell me what that is?" Wesley asked.

"The Sea of Trees," the young man said, swallowing. "The Forest of Suicides."

*


	6. Magdalen, Act One

Buffy went with Brian to his flat to pick up a change of clothing. It had been decided that until Willow arrived Brian would be safest staying at Pyke's Lea; after some discussion it had also been decided to let Robson figure that out on his own. Buffy wasn't ready to let the Council in on Willow's involvement. Watching her direct operations, Brian felt sheltered from his burden; but he was tired and in low spirits. He was pretty sure Elisabeth had forgiven him for cutting up rough at the meeting, but she was still distant; oddly, he had felt less constraint with Rupert, who had made the offer of a bed for the night.

And part of the day, too. At everyone's insistence Brian had crashed on the couch in the downstairs lounge for a few hours of stunned sleep. With the result that he was now pulling into his parking space rather blearily, with Buffy alert and curious next to him. He sat for a moment staring ahead, but before Buffy could reassure him about their safety, he said: "This is going to be awkward as hell. I'm afraid Elisabeth's still angry with me." He opened the door and got out.

"Well," Buffy said, following him, "she was pretty pissed off. But I think she's getting over it."

He darted a look at her as they approached his door. "I shouldn't ask what she said," he said, obviously asking.

Buffy satisfied herself that there was no impending ambush in the breezeway, and then answered, "Well...she did say she wished you wouldn't act like you're the only one it's costing to forgive."

Brian straightened up in the act of unlocking his door. "Ouch," he said, as Buffy pushed it open and went in ahead of him.

"Wow, look at all the books," Buffy said. "I'm shocked and surprised." When it was clear the flat was empty, she turned as he shut the door behind them. "She also," she said, "mentioned that for someone who's new to the being-in-love-thing, you're wearing the biggest hat in the corral. That's more or less a direct quote."

Since Buffy had given him a similar rebuke the night before, Brian didn't need to ask whether she agreed with Elisabeth's complaint. He gave her a downcast look and three slow knocks at his breast before moving past her to dig in his pajama drawer.

Buffy drifted closer to lean against the wall with arms crossed gently. "I wouldn't sweat it," she said. "That's love for you. But...." She stopped, making a face.

"What," Brian said, tossing his pajama pants and a T-shirt onto the top of the dresser.

"I just...I'm just having a -- hard time picturing you --"

"What," Brian grinned, "did you think I only bat for one team?"

"No! I didn't think that. I'm just -- " she tried for some dignity -- "a little concerned about your taste."

"My taste," Brian said, with his eyelids lowered seductively, "is as good as it ever was."

Buffy flushed, and he chuckled triumphantly.

"All right, fine," Buffy said with a grudging smile, "I didn't know you play for both teams. But seriously: Wesley Wyndam-Pryce? He's like...bottled essence of Watcher. How did you...?"

"We were drunk," Brian said succinctly, pulling a duffel bag out from under his bed.

"Yeah -- but -- where does the love part come in?"

"Well, I slept with him more than twice. That's how it came in." Buffy still looked at him blankly, and he sighed and let the bag drop. "You know. That's the rule. Once is casual, twice is friendly, three times is a relationship."

Buffy looked amused, and he shot her a brief glare as he opened his sock drawer. "So you were drunk all three times?" she said.

"Of course not. Beer's not the only thing that can lower one's resistance." Brian dug through his socks, feeling simultaneously nettled, reminiscent, and anxious.

"But what _happened_?" Buffy demanded, and Brian snapped.

"I don't _know_ what happened. That third night he walked in the door, and my heart was on the floor at his feet before I knew what I was about. I --" He broke off and caught his breath for a moment before moving to choose his socks to pack. After a moment he shot a glance up at her and saw that she was looking very sympathetic. "This is new territory for me," he muttered. "Sorry, but narratively speaking I'm not on form."

"Oh, Brian," Buffy said, with an affectionate laugh that left him wholly disarmed.

As he laid the duffel on the bed and began stacking clothing to put into it, Buffy said, "Anyway, I hope you don't make a habit of storming out of meetings. That kind of thing can get you killed, and we need you."

Brian sighed. "You'd think I'd have the training to stick a horrific meeting out. But honestly, there wasn't much I could contribute. I don't even know what that Cruci-thingy is that got you all upset."

"The Cruciamentum?" It was a cold word in Buffy's mouth. Brian steeled himself to look at her.

"Yes. What is it?"

"It is -- was -- an old Council tradition," Buffy said, her voice even and controlled. "If a Slayer reached her eighteenth birthday, the Council arranged an ordeal where they would magically or medically suppress her powers and lock her in a building with a hungry vampire. If she survived the night, she got credit for being resourceful; if not, well, then she wouldn't grow old enough to be difficult to control, and the Call would pass to the next girl. From the Council's point of view, it was a win-win setup." Buffy shrugged one shoulder as if to mirror the Council's callous view.

In silence Brian swallowed his gorge. He said quietly, "And the Council did that to you?"

"The Council made Giles do that to me," Buffy said. "But he couldn't stand cooperating completely, and broke down and told me what was happening to me. So they fired him, and sent a green young Watcher named Wesley Wyndam-Pryce to replace him at the Hellmouth. Then Faith went dark on Wesley's watch, and they sacked him too."

Brian took this in. "Much becomes clear," he said finally.

"Didn't Giles tell you any of this?" Buffy said, and Brian gave her a look. "Right. Stupid question."

"So that would be why Rupert and Wesley don't like each other, why you and Rupert can't quite get to grips, and why you're not terribly warm on Wesley."

Buffy looked sad, and he regretted speaking quite so bluntly. "Pretty much," she said.

"So I ask again," Brian said, stacking each pile of his clothing firmly in the duffel, "why we are treating with the Council."

"Because," Buffy said, "we can't fight them and their rogues at the same time. Because Angel is gone and the balance has changed. Because if we don't have them for allies we'll have them for enemies. And because I don't want them getting Wesley in their orbit without having to deal with me."

"Is that why you need me?" Brian said. "To help recoup the weight we lost with Angel, by drawing Wesley in?"

"Brian...."

Brian turned sharply toward her. "What if Wesley turns out to be no use to any of us? What then?"

"Then we just help him," Buffy said simply. "If we can."

There were a lot of things Brian wanted to reply to that, but he couldn't speak. He turned back to his packing.

He heard Buffy give a short sigh. "Did Wesley tell you anything about his time with Angel at Wolfram &amp; Hart?"

"Not much," Brian said shortly. "He was somewhat more occupied with trying to figure out why he's been randomly thrust back into the land of the living."

"Understandable," Buffy said, refusing to be nettled. "Does he remember dying?"

Brian couldn't figure out who was making him angrier at the moment, Buffy for her calm interrogation, or himself for already crossing this Rubicon of betrayal. "He didn't describe the process, no," he said, stuffing in socks around his clothes. "But he knows the demon who killed him. The same demon who hid Angel's son from our reality, he said. Sounds like a hard demon to try to kill. And nobody's explained to me, either, exactly how a vampire goes about producing a son. There are," he said, zipping the duffel with vim, "a lot of things I don't know." He straightened up to look at Buffy, but she was staring through him to the wall, looking stricken.

"Angel's son," she whispered. "Connor. That must be why...." Her expression darkened. "Well, thank you very _fucking_ much, Angel."

Brian wasn't following her. "Buffy?"

"That was the trade," Buffy said, spelling it out for herself as well as him. "That was what Wolfram &amp; Hart gave him in exchange for taking over their L.A. office. Altering reality for the sake of his son. And Wesley broke that spell?"

"He didn't say," Brian said.

Buffy gave a hard sigh and shook her head. "Never have vampires for exes, Brian. They're more trouble than they're worth."

"More trouble than Watchers?" Brian said, feeling obscurely vindicated.

"Well," Buffy said, beginning to smile, "it may be close."

*

They tried to persuade Wesley not to go.

It would be impossible to find her, his new sources in Kyoto told him, once he got beyond the flag-marked territory; and if he strayed into the uncharted parts of the forest it would take a miracle for him to find his own way out again. No one went into Aokigahara alone. Wesley did not ask for volunteers to accompany him. When he caught the word _akuma_ in the whispers passing among them, he debated telling them directly that he had been educated in the art of dispatching evil spirits, but decided against it. Instead he resolved to find someone who could refine his knowledge of the demon lore of Japanese forests.

Or he could skip the tutorial and buy a GPS unit and a gun.

*

It was as they were leaving that Buffy, giving the flat a last once-over, saw the display case. "Uh, Brian...do you usually keep your display like that?"

"No," Brian said slowly, letting the duffel slide from his shoulder and going round the couch to investigate.

Someone had broken the lock on the display case, cracking the top panel of glass, and left it raised. Inside, the Ha'Vitterin dagger had been taken from its place and driven into the felt with enough force to overturn some of the labels in the case: pinned by the point was one of Brian's cards, which was slightly fuzzed around the top edge.

Brian stared at it for a long moment. Finally Buffy nudged his arm gently. "Brian? You okay?"

Brian nodded without speaking.

"D'you think this was the rogues?"

"Yes," Brian said. "That's the card I gave Wesley."

"How do you know?"

Brian just shook his head. Other than the slight wear, there was nothing to distinguish this card from the hundreds of others he kept both at home and at work; but he understood the message perfectly.

So did Buffy. "We need to find him," she said. "Before they do."

*

Wesley arrived at the trailhead into Aokigahara just as the sun was rising. He had bought a brown leather frock coat, warm enough to spend nights in, and packed a heavy satchel with provisions and tools -- a torch, a bottle of paraffin, flint and steel, a strong folding knife. And, of course, the GPS and the gun. He had decided, despite the risks, not to let slip that he was going into Aokigahara when making these purchases: there were plenty of useful things he could sift from local chatter about the place, but drawing attention to himself was, he sensed, a greater liability than incomplete knowledge. He had to get in, and he had to find Faith: then he would work on the problem of getting her out and away from the rogues who were surely on her tail.

At first the trail was broad and easy to follow. He kept up a steady pace until he reached the place where flags began to mark all the searches of months and years past for bodies of missing persons. He passed a sign that said in sober hiragana, "Your life is a precious gift from your parents. Please reconsider." Wesley snorted, remembering the scene on his parents' front doorstep in Winchester, and struck off toward uncharted territory.

The morning passed, and soon Wesley was beyond most signs of human presence. He chose his footing carefully, not wanting to fall over deceptive tree roots or discover a new cave by tumbling into it. Instinct seemed to be serving him well: the shadows cast by innumerable branches seemed to harbor a shifting not-quite-movement. This is known, he thought as he pursued it, as looking for trouble. He followed trouble through a maze of clustered trees and into an older, broader part of the forest. Overhead the faint hint of blue brightened as the sun climbed the sky. There was almost no sound: Aokigahara was not well inhabited even by animals, and Wesley's own footfalls were muffled by the mould of the forest floor.

The shadows had deepened, and Wesley realized that they were tracking him as much as he them. He was among a clutch of gnarled trees with thick boles, and he stopped to gather his senses. Before he could pause for longer than a second, however, instinct took over: he turned, whipping out his gun, and found himself levelling it at the face of someone he knew.

The fallout of the adrenaline settled as he took in the pale face, the dark hair, and the crossbow pointed at his heart. "Faith," he said calmly.

"Wesley?" Faith didn't lower her weapon, and he kept his steady. "They told me you were dead."

"Who told you that?"

"Damn Watchers. Hard to tell when they're wrong and when they're lying."

"Indeed," Wesley said. "In this case, I imagine it's both. I'm not dead anymore, as it happens. I came to look for you."

"And here was me thinking you were out for a stroll. Well, what if I told you to fuck off?"

"I'd be utterly unsurprised. Have you found her yet?"

She said nothing, which was answer enough. His eyes had adjusted enough to the patch of shadow she occupied, and he could see the slim dark shape slung over her shoulder, and a glint of silver. But sensing that it would not be politic to show too much interest in the Scythe, he kept his eyes on her face.

He said, "You can lower your weapon, you know. I'm not a vampire."

"Yeah? Lower yours first."

Wesley uncocked his nine and replaced it in the breast of his coat.

"Sucker," Faith said. But she made no move to attack him, and as he waited he could see that she had relaxed a little. She reached without looking into a pocket of her jacket and brought something out to toss at him. He fumbled and caught it: it was a wooden cross on a crude chain. He held it up in his fingers to show her it was harmless to him and then tossed it back. Finally Faith lowered the point of the crossbow and stepped forward to give him a scrutinizing glare. Wesley kept his ground, watching her.

"You've grown very thin," he observed.

"Took me six months to figure out how to eat anything in this country," Faith said. "What's with the face fungus?"

"You mean the goatee? Left over from when I was in disguise."

"As what, an aging white rapper?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Wesley said, "I couldn't rap to save my life."

"I said 'white,' didn't I? What are you doing here anyway?"

"Looking for you."

"Well, you found me." Faith gestured widely with the crossbow. "Now what?"

"I help you look for Satsuki Morimoto."

She didn't exactly point the crossbow at his heart again, but she looked like she was considering it. "Who asked you?"

"Nobody. And I haven't got anything better to do." Actually, he did, but casual offensiveness was a recognizable currency between him and Faith; telling her he was interested in her welfare and taking time out of his resurrected day to help her was offensive but slightly less than casual.

"How do I know," she said slowly, "that those Watchers haven't sent you to hamstring me?"

Wesley shrugged. "If you're inclined to believe I'd throw my lot in with a bunch of shortsighted and arrogant rogue Watchers, I suppose I can't stop you."

She looked mollified for a brief moment, but then said, "They didn't follow me in here. First peace I've had in weeks from Watchers of any kind. Then you show up."

"Like a bad penny," Wesley agreed. And he waited.

Faith stared him down for a long moment. Then finally she spoke. "I guess short of killing you there's no good way of getting rid of you. So you can come along for the ride if you want. But if you make a move for the Scythe, you'll lose a limb. Just to be clear."

"Got it," Wesley said.

With superb unconcern Faith stalked past him toward the broader path. With a few quick steps Wesley caught his pace alongside her, and so they walked among the shadows.

He thought at first that she was going to be morose and silent indefinitely, but as they walked she began shooting narrow looks his way. "So," she said when they'd gone some distance, "what's this about not being dead _anymore_?"

"That," Wesley sighed, "is a long yet maddeningly incomplete story."

"Yeah? I'm listening," Faith said. Wesley looked at her in surprise, and she added, "Though you'll have to compete with the entertainment value of this place."

"Right," Wesley said. "Well. Have you ever been to Manchester?"

"New Hampshire?"

Wesley smiled. "England."

*

It took Willow two days to get to Oxford: as Buffy explained to Brian, conventional travel, even if it was slower, would spare her the energy for serious mojo when she arrived. Meanwhile Brian divided his time awkwardly between Magdalen College and Pyke's Lea, working on the colloquium and helping Elisabeth refine her presentation -- not ideal distractions but better than nothing. When he went out someone went with him; usually Buffy and often Elisabeth with her. Once Rupert was his companion, which Brian found restful: he and Rupert rarely had much to say to one another, but at least Brian did not have to rouse himself to conversation and could be as morose and silently ill-tempered as he liked.

He had brought away with him the Ha'Vitterin dagger with its sheath, and given it into Rupert's keeping for the time being; it was the only magical object in his possession, which was -- Rupert observed -- probably why nothing else in his flat had been disturbed. Rupert had a shrewd notion that the rogues had sent someone to break magically into Brian's flat because they were looking for a magical object and had failed to find it in Wesley's possession. "Where was it all this time?" Rupert asked Brian of the credit card.

"Magdalen," Brian had said, and thought that whatever else Robson had meant by breaking into his rooms, at least he hadn't rifled them for Wesley's correspondence.

Brian had also given the card into safe keeping at Pyke's Lea, but he had taken back Wesley's letter. Everyone in the house had either read it or knew its contents, but to Brian alone it was an artifact as important as a talisman of paranatural lore. The second night he stayed at Pyke's Lea he took it out and looked at it once more: it was the sort of thing a historian would leaf past in search of clues about that year's skirmish between Yorks and Lancasters, and never know that it was the first and maybe the only love letter Brian would ever receive.

Every minute, every present moment, was passing into history; another minute either closer to or farther away from solving the problem, from freeing Wesley and bringing them together in one room, both on their feet. And Brian didn't know which.

Brian had boasted to Robson of his patience, but the urge to take concrete action was becoming overwhelming in its force.

*

Wesley's story carried them deeper into the forest, over hummocks of gnarled roots and through shadows impenetrable by the full daylight. Every so often he and Faith made passes with their torches among the endless trees. They crossed a rusted cordon of wire, disturbing a metal sign that creaked in the silence. Neither of them called out for Satsuki Morimoto; quite apart from startling a person bent on suicide, it would all too likely bring things running that they would prefer not to meet.

When Wesley came to the end of his story, Faith made no reciprocating answer. Apart from asking a few questions here and there, she had received his revelations in uncharacteristic silence. Wesley wanted to ask her what had happened to bring her here in such a state of intense and silent anger; but he wanted to get the lay of the land first.

The beams of their torches began to find corpses, many of them mere piles of clothes and bones nested among trees, some fresh enough still to be hanging from the boughs. These they paused long enough to identify, but moved on when none of them was who they were looking for.

God, this was a horrible place, Wesley thought with his torchbeam lingering on the swollen hand of a young man who was swinging slightly in the breeze that troubled the top of his tree overhead. And not least because he remembered all too well the overwhelming despair that would lead to a pass like this. He remembered it like a lost tooth, like the hole left by a pulled mandrake; like Dante's swimmer looking back at the black rapids he had narrowly escaped, Wesley recalled with relief and revulsion mixed the maelstrom that had closed over him. But Dante had had to go into it to get out; the only way back was forward.

"Wes," Faith said suddenly, "get moving."

His thoughts broke off and he looked at her. "You can't stay too long to look," she went on in a low flat voice. "Suicide demons like to hang out by their victims and catch more by drawing their thoughts. They're not visible. You won't know they're there till it's too late."

"Thanks for overexplaining," Wesley said. "I do know what a suicide demon is."

That was enough to provoke her. "Look," she said with sudden wrath. "Let's get something straight, all right? I'm the boss on this mission. You're just the passenger, Sancho. Don't make me change my mind about dumping your dead ass down a cave. You think I won't do it, just push me." She turned away and began to stalk ahead, swinging the beam of her torch in a hard snap.

It was hard not to take that for an invitation. "I see you have no problem governing by brute force," Wesley said as he followed her with a calm step.

"Try that line on Buffy," Faith said. "I'm fine with brute force, myself."

"I would if she were here," Wesley said. "She doesn't seem to be."

Bingo. "Yeah? What do you know about it?" Faith had turned sharply and fixed him with a dark glare. "Where have _you_ been? Oh yeah, that's right -- selling out to an evil law firm."

"We didn't sell out," Wesley said.

She came up close; he stood his ground. "Look me in the eye and say that, Wes."

For the space of a long breath he looked her in the eye, then gave a sigh. "Angel took the deal," he said, "to save Connor."

Her lips moved briefly, as if to frame a sentence asking who Connor was; but then her eyes went wide as she took it in on a shaking breath. A moment passed as she went pale, then: "And you let him?" And she gave Wesley a hard shove in the chest. He reeled back several steps, almost colliding with the swinging corpse before he got his footing back.

"We didn't know," Wesley said. "Wolfram &amp; Hart arranged for Connor to be placed in a surrogate family and the memory of his previous life to be hidden from everyone except Angel."

"Connor," Faith said, breathing hard. "That kid's more trouble than he's worth." She turned away again and strode off.

"You don't mean that," Wesley said in his hardest voice. "You said yourself that Angel --"

"Angel," Faith shouted suddenly, "violated the skulls of all the people who saved his ass. And now where is he? Dust to fucking dust, from what I hear." She delivered this last over her shoulder and kept going. Wesley followed her, patiently.

Sure enough, she stopped and turned twenty paces later. "Just tell me this, Wesley -- what did you _think_ you were doing there, if you didn't know?"

"The usual," Wesley said. "Saving the world. Trying not to get eaten from the inside out."

"And how'd that work out for you?"

"Not very well, obviously," Wesley said. "What about you? Why are you alone in Japan looking for a suicidal Slayer?"

"I didn't start out alone," Faith said. She started off again, but at a quieter pace. Wesley found it easy to match her stride; he walked silently next to her for several minutes, but she didn't give.

"Come on, Faith," he said finally. "I showed you mine."

"Real funny, Wes."

"Surely you've got a better comeback in your arsenal than that. Did Buffy assign you to Japan?"

"I picked Japan," Faith said. "For starters, in Japan, unlike the mother country, I'm not a fugitive from justice."

"You're welcome," Wesley said. "And who came with you?"

Her mouth moved as if to spit. "Robin. Raised by Watchers when his Slayer mother got killed by Spike."

"Ah. That must have been in the seventies."

"Little Wes did his homework in Watcher school."

"That got me Head Boy. Well, that and sexual favors." Wesley smiled half to himself. He could see Faith resisting a reaction. "What happened to Robin?"

"He split. Of course. Went back to the States just before Christmas." Faith sighed. "That's when Buffy sent Willow to Tokyo to hand off the Scythe."

"She sent Willow?"

"Yeah, Will's the only person who could carry off the glamour you need to get the thing on a long-distance plane flight."

"And you haven't seen any of the others since Christmas?"

"Apart from a couple crappy conference calls in which my opinion wasn't worth shit: nope."

"I'm surprised you didn't pack it in and move on," Wesley said.

"Yeah well -- " Faith scanned an empty clearing with her torch -- "turns out I like Japan." Her torchbeam found a corpse with the skull open-mawed against a log. "At least," she added, "I did."

*

Willow arrived late in the evening of the third day. Till now Brian had been very curious to meet her, and part of him was indeed amused at the greetings between her and Buffy ("Oh, you've let your hair grow out again! Remember when we used to watch TV and Xander and I would braid it?"), and enjoyed the extra conviviality at their late dinner ("Oh, I'll eat anything -- as long as it doesn't, you know, suddenly have an arrow sticking out of it"), but another part of him was now roaring with impatience at the delay.

After dinner Willow was given the credit card to examine. She turned it over once and again, with the same gesture Brian himself had used while thinking over his options. "Yep," she said finally, "there's some serious mojo attached to this card."

"Can we use it to find Wesley?" Buffy asked.

Willow frowned. "I don't know. I can't tell if it's keyed to him so it'll know where he is if he's separated from it. But I bet it was designed with him in mind." She put it down on the table and thought some more. "Yeah," she said, "I think the only way to find out is going to be to use it as a focal point for an astral walk."

"An astral what?" Brian said.

She looked at him, with a sort of earnest look that seemed incongruous with her reputed power. "An astral walk. We would use this to send one of us to the astral plane to find out where it came from and how Wesley is connected to it."

"Right," Brian said, "I'll go."

To his growing fury, every single person in the room looked at one another in dismay. Elisabeth opened her mouth, but before she could utter her protest he said, in a low hard voice: "Give me an acceptable argument why it shouldn't be me."

Buffy said, "...I know what I'm doing?" and Brian felt suddenly that he understood why Buffy had been sometimes described as high-handed. He glared at her and fought his temper down. Losing it would only prove he wasn't fit for this mission.

But before he could gather a calm defense of his position, Willow said to Buffy, "I think, actually, it'll have to be Brian. He was the last person to see Wesley before he disappeared. And they're connected." She said this last without embarrassment, and Buffy acquiesced to her professional air. With her tacit yielding, Willow took over briskly.

"Okay," she said. "I'll hit Giles's bookshelves to make sure the spell plan is right. Giles can gather the things we need and draw the circle -- you've got a good place for that, right?" Rupert nodded toward the study. "Okay. We'll do it bright and early, just before dawn."

"In the _morning_?" Brian said.

"Yes, in the morning," Willow said. "All of us will need to get some sleep. There will be only three of us anchoring you, so we need all the energy we can get."

"Four of us," Elisabeth said, frowning.

"Nope, three of us." Willow gave a pointed look at her belly, and as Elisabeth's lips thinned, Willow added, "I'm sorry. If I could make use of your energy for this I totally would; but it's too dangerous. I need you to observe the spell, and go for help if it goes south."

Elisabeth clearly didn't like this, but she subsided with a quiet glare.

Everyone got up to clear the table. Instead of helping, Brian walked away, into the study and out the French doors onto the back porch. Twilight was just fading into darkness, and the crickets were singing in the woods behind the lea. Brian buried his hands in his hair and curled them into fists until his scalp ached. He angled his elbows forward and took in as slow a breath as he could.

Behind him the door latch clicked open; he recognized the step that came, and went very still for a moment before dropping his hands and turning to glare at Elisabeth in the darkness. "Don't," he said, before she could speak.

"You don't even know what I was going to say," Elisabeth said.

"I know you didn't want me to go," Brian said, savagely.

"I didn't," she said. "I don't. I don't think you get how dangerous dimensional travel is, let alone what happens when you get there. But Willow's right; it has to be you. I just wanted to -- "

"Advise me? Protect me? The shoe's on the other foot now, and it's not too pleasant, is it?" Brian was obscurely aware that taking his frustration out on Elisabeth was not well done of him, but he couldn't help it.

Elisabeth's own temper rose in answer. "Well, if it's any consolation, I'll have the dubious privilege of watching helplessly if anything goes wrong tomorrow. I hope that keeps you warm tonight." She turned and went back to the door. "Good night, Brian."

"Fuck," Brian groaned as the door snapped shut.

He went back into the house and went to bed without speaking to anyone, listening as the others made their own way to bed. In the room next to him he could hear Buffy and Willow talking; the ease in their voices suggested that it wasn't about tomorrow's business, which Brian found both reassuring and irritating. After a while he heard Buffy go back to her room and close the door. Across the way he caught the faint thread of Elisabeth's and Rupert's voices in their room: Elisabeth's both angry and resigned, the lower tone of Rupert's voice dry and calm.

Brian lay there with his eyes closed, sure that he would never be able to sleep. But in almost the next moment someone was shaking him by the shoulder. He got his eyes open in the grey half-light to see Buffy leaning over him fully dressed. "It's time," she said and, when she was sure he was awake, went away.

In a numb stupor he got up and got dressed. Downstairs Rupert was sipping coffee, Elisabeth was blinking blearily, and Buffy wrapping up in a cardigan and stifling a yawn. Willow alone looked alert and chipper. "Coffee? toast?" Rupert asked, and Brian shook his head.

"Okay then," Willow said, "ready?"

"Lay on, Macduff," Brian said.

"Nothing like the Scottish play to lend the proper air of success to the proceedings," Rupert said dryly. Brian shot him a mordant grin.

In the study a circle had been made on the rug with a series of polished stones interspersed with three white candles, and in the middle of it one of the hearth wing chairs had been placed facing east. Willow handed Rupert and Buffy each a scrap of paper. "Here is the incantation," she said, and then handed another scrap of paper to Elisabeth. "This is to summon the coven for backup if we need it." Then she looked at Brian. "Your chariot awaits, sir."

Finally. He could feel Elisabeth looking at him, but he refused to look back. With a sense of casting away a rope, Brian crossed the circle and sat down in the chair. He watched as Willow placed the credit card within the circle at his feet, and directed Rupert and Buffy each to their place at a third of the circle between candles; she took the place facing Brian and knelt; the others did the same. She held up a hand palm up, and the candles sprang into flame.

Right, Brian thought. Nothing to be concerned about here at all.

They began the incantation, a long growl of a chant full of flat vowels that camouflaged the instant where it repeated. Brian curled his hands round the ends of the chair arms and watched as Willow's eyes grew black: she closed them, and her voice blended with Rupert's and Buffy's till it seemed that it was a single rope of voices binding the circle with him in it.

His eyes fell closed as the chant surrounded him, and he relaxed. He expected to feel some sort of tug or jerk on his soul, some kind of discomfort as he was thrust magically into another dimension; but he felt nothing like this. All that happened seemed to be that the others' voices began to sound within his head as well as outside of him; and that didn't seem to be making much difference.

A long moment passed, long enough for Brian to begin to wonder whether this was actually going to work. Nothing had changed. He opened his eyes to look at Willow and see whether she meant to abort the spell.

And almost fell over his own feet where he stood in a long corridor. He caught himself in a stumble and left his hands up for balance, as if the floor might buck him off at any moment. They were his own long, narrow scholar's hands; this was his own body, dressed in the jumper and cords he'd put on when he got up. All present and correct. He turned to look behind him: there was nothing but long corridor behind as well as before. The chant was gone as if it had never been. That other Brian, sitting under the frescoed ceiling of the study at Pyke's Lea, might just as well never have existed.

For a moment vertigo made him snatch for breath as if he were drowning; he forced himself to breathe slowly, and let his hands fall by degrees to his sides. "Right then," he murmured to himself. "Now where the hell am I?"

The corridor was broad and pleasant in its lines: too opulent for a school, too new for a cloister, but yet too impeccably untouched to be a proper working office. The plush carpet was some cool unidentifiable color, the walls an equally unidentifiable complement. Every so often a polished mahogany door broke the infinitude of perspective. The wood between the worlds this was not; but it clearly was also not an endpoint destination. He picked his way slowly along, finally stopping at one of the doors at random, and laid his hand gingerly on the latch. There was no telling what was on the other side of this. He'd heard enough tales about hell dimensions to expect the worst. After a heart-thudding moment, he decided to move on without trying the door, until he had reconnoitered a bit.

After walking a few minutes he realized with chagrin that he would now never recognize the spot where he'd arrived if he went back there. "Oh well done, Whitaker," he muttered. But in any case it seemed that the way back was forward. Brian moved on, his feet silent on the carpet; he scuffed them noisily for a moment and felt better.

Presently he came to a door that was not shut tight like the others. It stood ajar a few inches, and the bit of wall Brian could see beyond it was normal office wall like the corridor. Well, if it didn't open onto a pit of flames or a field of daisies, there was no harm seeing what was inside, right? Brian laid his hand on the door and pressed gently till it swung inward on silent hinges.

It looked to be an empty office, with daylight shining in from somewhere beyond a wall to his right. Slowly Brian crossed the threshold; nothing changed, and he walked in far enough to see beyond the wall's corner.

The first sight he encountered was the bottom of a high-heeled shoe where it rested on a deep, gleaming desk. From there his gaze followed shapely legs to a smart grey dress suit and up to the face of the woman lounging in a leather desk chair. She was beautiful as a lioness is beautiful, unruffled and predatory; the sunlight (if it was sunlight; the picture window behind her didn't quite offer an actual view) outlined her rich brown hair in a live, bright bronze.

Their eyes met, and she raised an eyebrow, tilting her head as if amused.

"So Wesley didn't come himself," she said, in an American purr. "I am surprised."


	7. Magdalen, Act Two

From the few things Faith had said, Wesley judged she had been in the forest a day longer than he had, and he had found her quickly because she had doubled back to cover another quadrant. He also judged that she had not slept at any time since entering the forest -- and indeed, who could blame her. His casual glances took in the dark shadows under her eyes and the occasional heaviness of her footsteps, which only grew more pronounced as evening drew on and night overtook Aokigahara, far sooner than the sun set in the outside world. Proposing a rest, however, was a dicey proposition: she wouldn't take kindly to him pointing out she was tired, nor would she be sympathetic if he claimed to be. He decided on a straightforward approach.

"D'you think we'd better make camp?" he said as they reached a relatively level tract of the forest floor.

She stopped and glared at him thoughtfully. "Why," she said, "are you tired?"

Wesley shrugged. "I could rest. The present is as good a time as any."

Faith glanced around the clearing, and her thoughts were nearly transparent: any time they spent resting was time they weren't looking for Satsuki. Wesley couldn't bring himself to say to her what she already knew -- that the chances of their finding her alive were already hopelessly slim.

Faith looked back at him. "This is not the kind of place you come to camp," she said, which was as close as either of them would get to acknowledging the grim reality.

"No," Wesley said carefully, "but we'll need our strength getting out."

She looked back the way they had come, as if with a glance she could measure the miles they had covered already. "True."

They made camp. Faith gathered dry wood, and Wesley made a fire. When it was burning steadily Wesley realized that something like a faint chill had gathered around the edges of his lungs. He settled himself close to the comforting little blaze and opened his pack to dig among his provisions. Faith did the same.

Wesley had brought mostly food; Faith, mostly water. "Well, I guess that works out," Faith said, taking a sweet bun from Wesley and unwrapping it. "Care for a dried fish?" He reached and took what looked like a minnow out of the bag Faith offered. "It's best if you don't look at it first," she told him, with a sly smile. "You been to Japan before?"

"Only briefly," Wesley said, popping the minnow into his mouth. "No extended stays. Have a rice cake."

He chewed the fish; and though he couldn't help making a face he managed to swallow it. Faith laughed at him, and handed him her canteen. Wesley took a hasty swallow. "Very tasty," he said hoarsely, wiping his mouth and handing it back.

After the meal Wesley fed the wrappers into the flames and looked over at Faith, who was stowing the canteen back into her bag. "We should sleep a couple of hours each," he said.

"Yeah," Faith said. "You go first."

He had known she would say that, and had already decided to comply. "Right. Wake me when it's time to switch."

Wesley wrapped himself in his coat and stretched out next to the fire on his back. It wasn't the most comfortable sleeping arrangement but it beat sleeping naked on a bare floor. "How did you beat the Watchers who came after you?" he asked her, with his eyes closed.

"I didn't," Faith said. "They wouldn't leave either of us alone, always talking shit, and then they got in the way when I took Satsuki hunting. The demon we were after got away, and the next day it killed my translator. I guess you heard about that."

"I didn't catch the details, but yes."

"I almost lost it. Wanted to kill that Watcher Bingaman so bad it was a taste in my mouth. Satsuki stopped me, but the public brawl that happened was kinda the last straw for her family. They're real traditional folks, you know -- didn't faze them that Satsuki was an ancient warrior, but getting into trouble with the likes of me was going too far. They wouldn't let Satsuki see me after that. They were going to send her away from Kyoto, and then the shit really hit the fan. The demon came back for another bite at the apple, and killed her little cousin." Faith was silent for a moment. "She fought it and lost, and saw it happen. I guess she wouldn't forgive herself. I wanted to tell her that sometimes surviving is the best you can do, but I went after the demon first. By the time I got rid of it, she was gone. It took me a whole day to get one of her family members to tell me anything about it. The note she left just said she was going and not coming back, and she was sorry. But she bought a map of Fuji-san on her way out of town, and that's how the rumor got started that she was coming here."

Faith delivered the story as if she had been digesting it, as if she had been stripping it in her mind of the shame that clung to it. It wasn't safe to blame oneself for things under these trees. Wesley changed the subject.

"So," he said, "you're in Japan; Xander is in Botswana; where is Willow?"

"Brazil," Faith said.

"And Buffy's in Rome. With Dawn, I presume."

"Yeah, and don't forget Andrew."

"As if I could," Wesley said, smiling to himself.

"I heard the Council thought that Andrew built that robot of your dad," Faith said, making Wesley snort. "Did you really -- ?"

"Yes," Wesley said. "And it was the rogues who built that robot, not Andrew."

"Somehow I'm not surprised. So they thought you were the weak link? Ha. You know, for people who aren't very smart, they're causing an awful lot of trouble."

"Positively pestilential," Wesley agreed gloomily. "I've no idea how we're going to get rid of them. I don't blame Brian for being suspicious of every Watcher he meets. Even the ones who've kept their honor are a problem to deal with. It's a wonder he ever -- "

"Wait," Faith said, "is this Brian Whitaker you're talking about?"

"Yes. You've met him?"

"No, I just heard him mentioned as Giles's wife's best friend. Buffy says he's hot, in a geeky college-teacher kind of way."

"Well, yes." Wesley couldn't really argue with that. Then the implication caught up with him and he raised his head. "Wait. Buffy hasn't slept with him, has she?"

"Not that I know," Faith said, raising an eyebrow at his quizzical glare. "Why, have you?"

Wesley had his mouth open and his breath drawn, but lay his head back down without saying anything, processing the concept of Buffy taking an interest in Brian. Well, why wouldn't she?

He hadn't even got as far as deciding whether to dissemble, but Faith interpreted his silence correctly anyway. "You _have_?" She snickered. "Well, damn, that's interesting. Since when did you start driving stick? Or is that one of those things that being brought back from the dead --"

Wesley rolled his eyes hard enough to be practically audible. "I haven't 'started' doing anything. My tastes have always been catholic. I mean to say, universal."

"Now who's overexplaining? I knew what you meant." He felt her giving him a long, lazy look, and ignored it, staring up into the impenetrable shadows overhead. "Anyway," Faith said, "I can see why you felt the need to keep up your het street cred around Angel."

There was no possible answer to that, so Wesley said instead, "Most Watchers do, you know. Have catholic tastes. It's sort of --"

"An ultra-British thing?"

"Not exactly." Wesley swallowed an ironic smile. "It tends to be acknowledged without speaking, unless one is so unfortunate as to actually fall in love with a member of one's own sex, in which case one is liable to fall into disgrace. Otherwise sexual exchanges are...private transactions."

"Yeah," Faith said. "So does Giles know you fucked his wife's best friend?"

"Probably, by now," Wesley sighed.

There was a puckish pleasure in Faith's voice when she replied, "Sounds like they're probably not gonna roll out the welcome mat for you when you get back."

"Probably not." Wesley closed his eyes. "I could die of shock at the novelty."

"And he sets a new world record in the sarcasm shotput!"

Wesley smiled in spite of himself. "Good night, Faith."

"Yeah, man-hoes need their beauty rest. Night."

*

Despite the innocuous office and the decided lack of demon hordes, Brian knew himself to be far, far out of his depth; so he said nothing.

"I guess it figures he'd send you instead," the woman said; which was as good an opening as any. Brian cleared his throat.

"He didn't send me," he said. "I'm looking for him."

"Oh, have you lost him?" She tilted her head the other way.

That was bait if Brian ever heard it. "Why," he shot back, "have you?"

She smiled luxuriantly and gestured with languid fingers at the office around them. "I'm not looking. I'm just here."

"Yeah?" Brian said. "Who are you?"

Her smile took on a hint of quizzical glee that irritated Brian past reason, but he kept still. "What, didn't Wesley tell you about me? Not even to give a warning?" she added, as Brian showed no response. "Well, shame on him. You'd think he'd send you here prepared."

"He didn't -- " Brian said, and stopped. For all intents and purposes, Wesley had. Though if he'd been present he would have had a better argument than anyone for taking the dimensional plunge himself.

The woman saw Brian come to this conclusion and shook her head. "So Wesley's been separated from his beacon. No one could have predicted _that_ would happen." She rolled her eyes. "I hope Illyria's happy."

"Illyria?" Brian repeated, frowning. This didn't compute. Everything from the office furniture to the woman's rich attire screamed Evil Law Firm, but he hadn't thought that Illyria --

"Well, at least there's _one_ thing Wesley didn't fail to tell you about," she said. "Of course."

Right, Brian thought, he had given up far too much ground. "I don't think we've been properly introduced," he said in an academic tone so crushing he usually didn't even need to glare.

Entirely unfazed, she raised and swung her legs from the desktop and got to her feet. Brian waited as she approached him with feline grace, and just as he thought in panic that she might walk right into him, she changed course to circle him closely, looking up at him. He caught a scent of her understated perfume; it smelled like money.

"Brian Alan Whitaker," she said, drawing his name out slowly in her cool voice. "You're a seventh-generation -- Mancunian, I think the word is?" She smiled. "You left home to teach medieval history at Oxford. Very daring of you," she said, making it sound like anything but. Brian gritted his teeth.

"You have the advantage of me," he said, as she passed behind him.

"In oh so many ways," she agreed. But she relented and drew a card out of an inner pocket, and proffered it to him between two fingers. Slowly, Brian took it. The name, Lilah Morgan, meant nothing to him, but the logo told him everything he needed to know. He handed the card back. "Thank you," he said.

She was watching his face. "He really didn't tell you about me," she observed, and added dryly, "You'd think it would occur to Wesley once in a while to tell his friends things."

Something in her expression made Brian ask: "Are you his friend?"

"Never in a million years," Lilah said, but her voice warmed as she said it. A glint of insight came to Brian; he studied her thoughtfully, assessing her beauty and her air of gentle malice. His gaze stopped at her throat, where a faint sharp line crossed the skin between her hair and her scarf.

"You're...not among the living any more, are you?" he said.

"You should ask Wesley for the story," she answered.

"I will, once I find him. If you don't know where he is, what am I doing here?"

The smirk was back on Lilah's lips. "Well," she said, "I imagine you're here because this is where Wesley would have come. I would be happy to show you what's become of Wesley's friends."

"I expect nothing good can have happened to them, then," Brian said.

"You catch on quickly," Lilah said.

"I know where I am now," Brian said. "It's Belbury, isn't it?"

"You know," she said, "C.S. Lewis jokes are way out of date."

"I'm an historian," Brian said. "I like my jokes with book mold on them."

Lilah was smirking at him now with something oddly like affection. "You think you're ready for the big leagues?" she said.

Brian smiled back, a genuine smile. "Never in a million years."

*

Wesley woke to a hard nudge against his shoulder, and fought to get his eyes open. He groaned.

"C'mon, Wes. Your turn to watch."

His gaze, blurred with sleep and the dim radiance of the fire, found Faith's face looking impassively down at him from where she knelt at his side. "Am I late for the apocalypse?" he murmured, trying to recall what had put him together with Faith and fire and darkness.

"Nope, you're right on time. Wake up, will you?" Her voice was throaty with weariness.

Wincing, Wesley sat up; once he was perpendicular his waking consciousness crept back: camp, Aokigahara, the lost Slayer. He rubbed his face hard with all his fingers, willing his brain to wake up the rest of the way.

"You up?" Faith said.

"Yes. Thank you." He got slowly to his feet and took his seat on the flat stone Faith had occupied by the fire. As he watched numbly, Faith pulled a small blanket out of her pack, unclipped the Scythe and its holster rig from over her shoulder, and lay down with it in front of her, wrapping them both in the blanket. She was asleep almost at once, curled over neatly in a pose both relaxed and protective, in the hollow of the ground where he had lain.

When her sleep had deepened and the the energy of their movements had passed, Wesley got up and went to relieve himself at the edge of the campsite, then walked the small perimeter of the firelight, sharpening his alertness on the hone of the shadows. Then he sat down again and watched Faith sleep.

Things had certainly come to an interesting pass, he thought, that he could sleep easily and deeply in a dark forest under the guard of a Slayer who had once tortured him. But he hadn't even given it a thought till this moment. He thought about it now: how he'd defied the Council and their hit squad for Angel's sake, and in doing so had given them both the key to a mutual understanding strong enough to overcome Angelus. It had been almost pure serendipity; but then honor was like that: fragile and contingent, like the trust that had moved Faith to take him with her on this journey but did not stop her from sleeping with the Scythe in her arms. Wesley wondered if that total and exhilarating sense of abandonment that had carried them through that task would come at need for this.

Honor, and abandonment: those were the counterweights that had seen him through his first life; his new life, he sensed, had an analogue: gratitude, he remembered from his imprisonment in Paris -- gratitude, and what? Grief, perhaps. But that wasn't quite right. Wesley felt tired and chilled; he fed the fire and hunkered closer to its bright warmth. He looked again at Faith; the renewed brightness of the fire only emphasized the hollows under her eyes and the unwonted prominence of her cheekbones.

The sooner we get out of this forest, Wesley thought, the better.

*

"So," Lilah said, "I know why Wesley would be here. Why are you here?"

This is like one of Elisabeth's fairy tales, he thought; Lilah was much prettier than Baba Yaga, but he was in the same position of having to trust the completely untrustworthy.

"I'm here because I want to know how Wesley came to be resurrected," he said. "And I want to know what Wolfram &amp; Hart has to do with it. Was it their plan to bring him back?"

"Not...exactly," Lilah said dryly. She went to a credenza, drawing Brian to follow with a glance. As he watched, she pulled open a drawer and took out a very familiar envelope. She offered it to him, and he stood frozen for a moment before taking it. Unlike the letter Wesley had sent him, this had no direction written on the outside; and on the inside there was only the black credit card that had become the bane of his existence.

"Now, if Wesley had actually used it," Lilah said, "it wouldn't matter who had brought him back. He'd be ours. But bless his heart, he was too suspicious for that." For an evil lawyer, she sounded oddly triumphant, as if she'd been vindicated by Wesley's circumspection.

"But he didn't use it," Brian said, patiently. "So it does matter. Who brought him back?"

"Oh -- " Lilah sighed, as if this part of the story were almost too boring to tell -- "After Angel's last battle with the Senior Partners, Illyria went up to the Powers That Be and demanded Wesley be restored to life."

"The Powers That Be?" Brian had heard Elisabeth make reference to that entity, but he had supposed she was joking.

"You know, 'the gods.'" Lilah waved a hand. "The Powers govern the balance between the dimensions."

"And they'd really bring somebody back if you asked?"

"Not usually. They have a general policy of noninterference. But Illyria made a case that Wesley's death constituted a dimensional imbalance. Your friend Elisabeth Bowen might know more about that." Brian narrowed his eyes at her, refusing the bait, and Lilah smiled.

"Of course," she went on, "the Senior Partners had something to say to that. After all, it was because of Angel that the paths of all his people were diverted, and Wesley was no exception. But Illyria argued that Wesley's destiny had been unfairly fragmented, and it was only right that he should at least be given his life back. Well, the Senior Partners thought that was a little too much, to have Wesley back in his home dimension and Illyria with him. So at their suggestion, the PTB made Illyria a deal: that Wesley would be brought back if and only if she accepted permanent exile from his dimension. And Illyria agreed."

Brian stood looking at her for a moment, absorbing this; and Lilah let him. "So where does this come in?" Brian said finally, holding up the credit card.

"Well, the Senior Partners offered the vestibule for returning Wesley home, and provided him with a beacon. If he used it he'd be agreeing to a contract -- "

"An evil contract -- "

"Well, naturally. We wouldn't want the forces of good to have things all their own way. We _did_ give him a choice. He could serve in perpetuity, like the rest of us -- or...not." Lilah lifted her hands in an insouciant shrug.

Brian didn't like the sound of that "not." He proceeded warily. "Well, since the credit card hasn't been used -- "

"Oh, I never said it hasn't been used. It has. By you. How do you think you got into this office?"

She's playing with me, Brian thought, his heart racing. "I haven't put my signature to anything," he said.

"That's true," Lilah said, looking far too pleased. "But it's also true that the choice isn't Wesley's any more. It's yours, now."

"I must choose whether I will serve -- "

"Oh, no, not you. Wesley. You should take a moment to savor the power."

"I should take a moment to be sick," Brian said. "That decision isn't mine. It's not my right."

"Brian," she said gently, "do you really think this is about rights?"

"You tell me," Brian charged. "You're the lawyer. What happens if I destroy this?"

Lilah gave another light shrug. "Who knows? It would certainly break the tie between Wesley and the Senior Partners. But it might do other things too. It might cancel the deal with the Powers."

"You mean," Brian said, controlling a shiver, "make it so his resurrection never happened?"

"You could wake up in your bed," Lilah suggested, "never having known your new friend. But you know," she added as Brian stared at her in dread, "that might be for the best. Wesley tends to collect disasters like cereal prizes."

"I don't care about that," Brian said, and she laughed.

"Of course," Lilah said, "Wesley's been back in the world for a while, for better and worse. Take him out again, and talk about dimensional imbalances...."

Brian swallowed his gorge. "And what happens if I leave it alone?"

"The channel will always be open. It's a beacon, you know, not just a dotted line. You'd have to guard it carefully; if you pass on the choice, somebody else might get to make it. You know, Wesley's instincts are very good when they're on. If this beacon had fallen into that Watcher's hands, it'd be him standing here and not you."

"I could give it back to Wesley," Brian said, thinking fast.

"I'm afraid not," Lilah said. "He's passed. He walked away. He made himself pretty vulnerable; but you can't blame him for trying. Just think how much energy you'll both spend finding a safe place for it." She looked off into the middle distance, relishing the thought. "Of course, you won't be able to keep it near to hand, because who knows what it'll attract? And the Senior Partners will always know where it is. If you're looking for an interesting life," she said, "that should do the trick."

An open beacon might cause a dimensional imbalance anyway, Brian reflected. It would be better just to get rid of the thing once and for all. But what if Lilah was right and it restored the old status quo, taking away even his memory of Wesley? What an insult to history that would be. And he might not even get a split second to grieve in. Brian stared at the card (bane of his existence, indeed!), thinking desperately. But he couldn't decide which was worse: leaving Wesley vulnerable to the Senior Partners and all they might have planned, or potentially ending his life and erasing all he had done -- Brian thought of the rogue Watchers and their plot against the Slayers; what would have happened there without Wesley's presence in the maelstrom? It was like having a choice between destroying the future and destroying the past.

But if Brian were to ask what he truly wanted, it would be to see Wesley free of entanglements. Everything else was conditional: breaking the link with Wolfram &amp; Hart was the only certainty Lilah had given him among the verbage.

He looked up at Lilah, and saw that she was reading his face with a very knowing look. "You're very like him, you know," she said. "An honest-to-goodness paladin. He might thank you, if he had the opportunity. Then again...."

"I can certainly thank you," Brian said, "Baba Yaga."

He closed his eyes on her sudden warm smile. In an eternal split second he offered up his grieving request -- to Wesley, to the Slayers, to the universe -- for forgiveness: then he took the black card in both hands and with a quick motion snapped it.

As it snapped it disappeared from the grip of his fingers, and Brian opened his eyes.

He was standing on a precipice at a dizzying height, with his feet half over the edge. At his side was a large gnarled leafless tree, and he grasped at one of the branches to keep from falling, snatching for a half-voiced breath.

As far as he could see, the plain below the precipice stretched out in a curve as of the whole world, colorless and suffused with a dull dun light. There was not a green or growing thing to be seen, nor any human or animal form. There was no one at all.

"Oh, shit," Brian said.

*

As the faintest hint of grey was creeping into the spaces between the tops of the trees, Wesley stopped feeding the fire and stood up to stretch. Circumspectly he approached Faith where she slept. It seemed foolhardy to touch her, so he spoke her name firmly. She didn't move. "Faith," he said, more loudly. "_Faith_." Just as he began to think he'd have to risk shaking her by the shoulder, she started up and in a motion too quick to follow was on the other side of the camp clearing facing him with the Scythe out and ready.

"Faith," he said, "are you -- "

"Wes?" She blinked at him, consciousness catching up with adrenaline.

"That's right. You awake now?"

"Yeah, sure." She moved her shoulders and let the blade drop. "What time is it?"

"Time to be moving. Our rest's not going to buy us much time. Can you feel it?"

With nothing to do by the fire but think, Wesley had grown ever more aware of the hold the forest was taking on him. They had to find Satsuki soon, or they would grow tired and be overtaken by the demons themselves. Faith knew this as well as he did; she nodded without speaking.

A sweet bun apiece and a drink of water later, they were on their way again. They had found their way to a part of the forest that was older than any they had yet seen: the boles of the trees were thick and the undergrowth almost nonexistent. It was as if the trees had taken root in bare rock and held on for centuries. "I'm really starting to actively hate this place," Wesley said.

"Mm," was all Faith replied from where she walked ahead of him.

The sun rose, but they got even less benefit from its light than they had the day before: judging from the scraps of sky he could see above the canopy, Wesley thought it must be an overcast day. Brilliant. He shook his torch to renew the battery contact and followed Faith onward.

Presently they came to a small clearing nested around thickly with trees, a bower that in any other forest would be a secret and pleasant place, but here was a sullen pocket of despair. And in the center of it was something that was not a tree: in the shadows it looked like a crouched gnome before Faith's torchbeam caught the blue silk of a kimono.

Faith dropped her torch and let out a low cry. "Satsuki-san!" And she ran forward, shedding her pack and crossbow as she went. Wesley followed, lengthening his stride. In his own torchlight he saw that the girl in the kimono was seated upright, which ought to have reassured him; but she was motionless at Faith's approach, a motionlessness that instantly struck him as permanent. "Faith -- " he cautioned, but she was already dropping to her knees at Satsuki's side.

"Oh, Satsuki-san. Why couldn't you wait for me? Why couldn't you wait for me?" Faith was not weeping, but he had never heard or imagined hearing such a note in her voice before. It reminded him of nothing so much as the centuries of records of Watchers' laments; different and yet not different from the bond of a Slayer to a Slayer. He knelt at Satsuki's other side and saw what had provoked Faith's grief.

Satsuki Morimoto had put on formal dress, folding her usual clothes neatly at one side, and had seated herself carefully so as to remain upright after death. Her kimono was stained dark; a silk-lined box lay open before her, which had held the two long knives with which she had taken her own life. One knife lay across the edge of the box, the blood dry on its clean-sharp edge; the other had fallen from her hand when -- Wesley looked -- yes, when she had made the last cut to her throat. Her eyes were closed, her face colorless in the colorless light.

Faith reached to touch her, and by instinct Wesley also reached, to move Satsuki and lay her down gently on the forest floor. "The rigor's passed," Wesley said. "She's been dead a long time; probably more than twelve hours." He said this to let Faith know that she could never have reached her in time, but Faith seemed not to hear him. Her eyes, in a face set in grief, were fixed on Satsuki's face.

"I failed you," she said, in the same low anguished voice. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

"Faith," Wesley said, trying to break the lock of her gaze. Self-recrimination was natural, but nothing could be more dangerous here. He needed to get Faith into thinking what to do next.

But Faith stayed where she was, and made no reply to him, only a soft moan which Wesley didn't think she knew she was making. He looked desperately down at the body, trying to think himself.

"She did it formally," he observed. "Not by hanging. Why then did she not do it at home?"

"Because she wanted them to take her," Faith answered, in a voice as colorless as the girl's face.

Wesley looked at her in alarm. Her gaze had grown flat and opaque: assessing the scene, Wesley saw also that the Scythe lay a few feet away where she'd shed it to kneel at the body -- too near to hide without diverting Faith first.

"Faith," he commanded. "Step away from the body. Now."

She snapped her gaze to him suddenly; Wesley cut his eyes too late from the Scythe to her face, and in the last instant before her consciousness was fully possessed, he saw fury in her eyes. "You'll be first," she said in a harsh voice, and reached over Satsuki's body to grasp him by the lapels and throw him across the clearing.

He hit hard on his back and skidded, but before he could either finish the skid or recover control she was on him, grasping him and slamming him down again so that his vision popped.

"Faith -- "

She answered in the same harsh voice. "I'll give you what you wanted -- " And she took hold of his throat with both hands.

He tried to buck her off, but Faith had him pinned good and proper, one knee on his right elbow and the rest of her weight on his stomach, and her hands were like cold iron around his throat. He tried to speak her name, but his wind rasped and then closed off, and his shout remained trapped in the pressure of his skull. _Faith! Throw it out!_

His vision scorched itself and clouded over. A brief panic made him writhe under her, trying to twist from her grip, but she was bearing down now, her strength dead weight and more than weight on his neck. She wasn't going to fight the demon off in time. He was going to die. He could feel it: his consciousness was unraveling, shriveling to a foam of spit that would soon dissolve into nothingness. He stopped fighting. His left hand came up and closed blindly over Faith's elbow in a wordless gesture of something like trust, something like forgiveness.

In the next moment he was coughing and dragging in heavy, torn breaths. His throat hurt like nothing on earth. He rolled to curl on his side and choke and sob his way back into the land of the living. He heard a sound like Faith swearing in Japanese, but she was nowhere near him. He was free.

Consciousness was coming back to him with his vision. Demon attack. Faith. His throat felt like she'd cut it instead of just strangling it. _Well, here you are again, Wesley, curled over in a farcical excuse for a pastoral setting, gasping for breath with your hands at your throat._ "Par for the course," Wesley croaked aloud, wondering when he'd started to call himself by his given name. A vision came to him of the last time he remembered using that phrase, of Whitaker boneless with laughter at the tiny dining table in his flat. Par for the course. Yes; yes. With a groan he dragged himself knee by knee and boot by boot to stand.

Lingering over the image of Brian laughing at them both, Wesley didn't realize he was smiling till his gaze focused on Faith, who was standing ten feet away glaring at him.

"Are you all right?" she demanded.

"I'm fine," Wesley said, and for what felt like the first time ever, it was true. "Stop worrying."

She looked like she wanted to punch him, which was so reassuring that Wesley almost laughed. "I'm not _worrying_, asshole," she said, "I'm _asking_. I almost killed you. That was serious shit!"

"Yes, well," Wesley said, "you didn't actually harm me, the demon is gone, and I didn't soil myself in the process, so I'm calling this a net positive."

Faith's expression became very fixed. She swept her gaze from his face to the dead girl and the gloomed clearing stretching away into endless dismal stands of shadow, and then back to Wesley and his net positive.

They both started laughing at the same moment. The whole sorry situation grew funnier by the minute, and they laughed so hard that Wesley's throat and lungs ached in protest. But their hilarity was driving away the last taint of the demon in the air, and with his feet planted solid on the ground Wesley let his head fall back and laughed till the clearing rang with it.

He ended on a sigh to see Faith looking at him with a twist of a smile on her face. "I've never heard you laugh like that before," she said.

"I think getting killed must have a relaxing effect," Wesley said.

He was gratified to see her snort generously. "Didn't think you had a sense of humor, either."

"I'm sure it'll wear off eventually," he said. "Unless I make it home, which looks increasingly unlikely." He sighed and moved back toward the body. "Let's get her home first."

*

With an effort galvanized by panic, Brian got back his balance and his breath, and backed away slowly from the precipice's edge. When he was safely on solid ground, he allowed himself to grip his knees and have a case of the vapors. After a moment even that ran its course, and there was nothing left but to straighten up and look at what he had wrought: the bare rock and dirt all the way to the horizon, the blank and sunless sky, the tree without leaves, its branches grasping as if tousled by a wind that had died centuries ago.

"Oh God," he groaned, "what have I done?" He tried to think, but his brain seemed to have locked up. If he, and this, was all that was left, what was he going to do? What was there left to do? "Is this all that's left of the world?" he cried.

"It is all that is left of _this_ world," said a voice.

He spun on the spot, almost losing his balance. Behind him, looking out across the plain below, stood a very strange being. It looked human, except for the insect-thin frame; it looked female, but there was no pliancy in the beauty of its face and form. Whatever was not dark in its lines was indigo; and whatever was not indigo was the same blankness devoid of warmth that marked the sky under which they met. It cocked its head to look at him.

"Are you human?" it asked.

"Yes," Brian said. "What is this place?"

"It is a world I ruled once." It glanced sweepingly across the landscape and then back at Brian. "I come back often. It is very peaceful."

"Because there's nothing in it," Brian said. "Then this isn't...my world?"

"I relinquished my right to a world of humans like you," it said. "That world is not this."

Relief and understanding together nearly undid Brian at the knees. "You must be Illyria," he said.

"I am called Illyria," said the being indifferently. "What I am is another matter."

This being, Brian thought, was once a human person whom Wesley had loved; and he, along with the others, had stood back and allowed that desecration to take place. Fragmented, Lilah had said. Yes, everything shattered, and everyone in a different piece. Brian had worried about losing Wesley once. But there were a thousand ways to lose him, each more shattering than the last.

"I am looking for Wesley Wyndam-Pryce," he said, unable to keep the bleakness out of his voice. "Do you know how I can find him?"

Illyria looked at him with a sharper interest. "You know Wesley?" Brian nodded, and Illyria said: "Wesley was of great...worth...to me."

"He is of great worth to me," Brian said.

"But I cannot help you," Illyria said. "You must speak to the remains of Wolfram &amp; Hart if you wish to find him."

"I've done that already," Brian said. "They told me you bargained for his release from death."

"He was not swallowed with the others into the dimensional rift," Illyria said. "I thought this was inequitable."

"What dimensional rift?" Cue another explanation I can barely follow, he thought, and wanted to weep from mere weariness.

"The battle between Angel and the Senior Partners was making the dimensions unstable, so the Powers wrinkled your dimension and swallowed most of the battle into the fold. Wesley's former companions were taken out of the world, to fight or to die as the case may be. Each must pursue his own way. But Wesley was not given that chance. So I acted."

"I see," Brian said, and found that although he did indeed understand very little of the explanation, the fairy-tale analogue still obtained. Wait till Elisabeth hears this, Brian thought -- if he ever saw her again. Fighting with his best friend and then not making up before going on a perilous journey -- "Good show, Whitaker. Full marks," he muttered.

"I should not have allowed Wolfram &amp; Hart to become part of the bargain," Illyria said. "I believe it was a mistake to trust them. But they offered to provide Wesley with a beacon, so I agreed."

"Yes," Brian said. "Wesley left the beacon with me before he disappeared, and...and I used it to gain an interview."

Suddenly Brian was finding Illyria's scrutiny very uncomfortable. "You used the beacon," she repeated. "And where is it now?"

"Wolfram &amp; Hart put a choice before me," Brian said carefully, "and I destroyed it to set him free."

"You destroyed it," she said, in a voice that turned Brian's bowels to water. "You've undone all my work."

"I destroyed it to set him free," Brian said, keeping possession of himself with an effort.

"Mortals! Will I never be free of their limited thinking? If he was of such worth to you, then why did you betray him?"

"I -- " For a moment Brian feared that Illyria was going to rush him, and shouted desperately, "I wanted him to choose his own way!"

"And so he will," Illyria said coldly. "But he will never come to where you stand." And she opened her mouth and gave a great cry that shook the whole world from horizon to horizon, and disappeared in a noiseless snap.

That might have been the end of the interview, but the thunder of Illyria's cry only increased. Before Brian could do more than register it, the precipice reached back for him in deep cracks and tilted forward so that he reeled and fell. As he hurtled toward the bottomless distance, his flailing hands caught a branch of the tree, and for a moment he dangled wildly, palms raw on the lifeless bark. Then the tree groaned and snapped as its roots were exposed by the quake, and with a jerk Brian was shaken off and falling into the wide deep space -- he was going to fall for a long time before he died -- a last hope burst in a breathless cry from his lips -- "Willow!" --

And with an almighty wrench a hand gripped his and tore him through a hundred gravities, and he fell to the floor and skidded on his back, scattering stones everywhere, and found himself lying under the chandelier of the study in Pyke's Lea.

Between him and the frescoed ceiling, four faces crowded his vision, looking down at him. Brian waved a feeble hand at them.

"Hallo," he said.

*

Without discussing it much, Wesley and Faith constructed a bier for Satsuki using two long sturdy branches, the strap from Faith's canteen, a length of twine and the blanket from Faith's pack, and Wesley's spare T-shirt. After testing its integrity by having Faith lie on it while Wesley lifted one end, they reinforced the structure with a few smaller branches as struts. When they were satisfied that the bier was sturdy enough, they brought it over to the fallen Slayer.

Faith straightened the yoke of Satsuki's kimono with a gesture both unassuming and tender, a gesture, Wesley thought, that she would never dare to use to someone living. How vulnerable are the bodies of the dead, he thought, and briefly wondered how long his own had lain in Vail's hall, whether it had been left undisturbed till his resurrection or recovered by the Council. But he let the thought pass and returned to the task.

Together they lifted Satsuki and carefully laid her on the bier, straightening her clothes and folding her fallen hands over her chest. With his hand under the curve of the girl's head, Wesley felt a shock of vicarious grief: he could have wept, but the forest had already sapped him of all moisture, and if Faith's closed, tearless expression were any indication, it had stolen hers too. He watched her replace the long knives in their box and stow the box in her pack; then she looked up. "Okay," she said, "let's go."

As before, Wesley let Faith take the lead: she took the end of the bier that held Satsuki's feet, facing forward and away, and he took the other end to follow. She was being circumspect now, he reflected, about her contact visual and otherwise with the body, which was just as well. Carrying the bier, they left the place of Satsuki's death and began the long trek out of the forest.

They walked, minding one another's pace and navigating between trees and over hillocks; and Wesley turned over his thoughts. He hadn't thought much yet about what to do when they got out of here; now he wondered how to handle dealing with the body once it was no longer the possession of Aokigahara. The best method, perhaps, would be to send for the police as soon as they emerged; the police would know the protocols for contacting Satsuki's family and keeping the body in a decent state before the funeral rites. And it would save Faith a few explanations, though he felt sure she would return to Kyoto to speak to Satsuki's family in any case. He hoped she would let him go with her. He would stay with her as long as she allowed him, and maybe longer even than that.

Faith seemed to be thinking along similar lines, because she said presently: "So I guess you'll be headed back to L.A. once this is all over."

"To L.A.?" Wesley said in surprise. "I've got nothing left to do there. My work is done, and my friends are all dead or missing in action."

"Yeah, so I hear. So you're not going after them?"

"Maybe I'll know more when I find out how I got resurrected. But in any case, I had to let them go," Wesley said. "Even Fred. We're each in different stories, she and I. We always were, and we always will be." It was the first time admitting it out loud, and it hurt. "I can't change the story she's in. I can't even change the one I'm in."

"Isn't everybody in a different story?" Faith said. Her footsteps slowed and she looked briefly over her shoulder to answer her own question. "But some stories match."

"Yes," Wesley said. They were silent for many steps.

"So if you're not going back to L.A.," Faith said, "what was all that about making it home to save your sense of humor?"

"Oh," Wesley said. "That. Well. I wasn't thinking of Los Angeles."

"Where, then?"

He brought it out reluctantly. "Oxford."

"But I thought -- " Faith stopped. He could practically hear the tumblers falling into place: she was as good as Angel at figuring him out. "Oh," she said finally. Another silence of several steps. Then she said dryly, "Aren't you worried about falling into disgrace?"

Wesley laughed shortly, shifting the burden of the poles on his hands. "It's a bit late in the day for that, isn't it? Take the last nine months for example: I emptied an entire clip into a robot I thought was my father. I joined a conspiracy against the Black Thorn and then failed to carry out my mission. I sabotaged the rogue Watchers' spell to steal the Slayers' power and killed a girl doing it. Is there anybody left on the list I need to displease?"

"Well," Faith said, "there's me."

"That failure is older than any of them," Wesley said.

"And way past its sell-by date," Faith said, angrily. "Anyway, I don't get why you're comparing all this shit with falling in love."

"Bad things happen to people I love," Wesley said.

"Wow, look," she retorted, "what a coincidence. Bad things happen to people you don't love, too. Maybe -- maybe it's _all_ your fault, Wesley!"

"I think that's an abuse of sarcasm," Wesley muttered.

"God, is your ego huge," Faith said.

That stung him to retaliate. "Oh, hark!"

"Yeah, well, you don't get constantly compared to B all the time."

"Not Buffy, no," Wesley said.

Faith stopped. Very carefully she put down her end of the bier, forcing Wesley to do the same. Then she turned to face him. "Look," she said, "are we going to have to throw down? Because you can't think shit like this in here."

"We happen to be discussing realities," Wesley said.

"We happen to be discussing circus mirrors! Pull your head out of your ass, Wes, or I'll do it for you."

She seemed weirdly angry to Wesley. He was tired, and his heart felt wrapped in cotton wool. "I don't see what the fuss is about," he heard himself tell her. "Dying doesn't hurt; it's living that does."

"Wes," she began, more softly --

"I'm very tired now," Wesley said, which seemed redundant. Speaking anything out loud seemed redundant when the real pain was going on inside him. "I'd like for school to be out now, please." He thought of the last bell ringing, and boys pouring out of the broad double doors with books on straps....There was a rope around here somewhere, he remembered seeing it -- oh, yes, on the odd structure they'd made to carry the corpse; what a ridiculous enterprise. He wanted to bend down to pull it out but he couldn't see very well. Then he remembered the gun in his coat. Yes, that was quicker. He tried to feel for it, but there was a small hard hand in the way, not his. He wasn't quite standing on his own feet, but he didn't remember finding the rope.

His face hurt, oddly, in a distant sort of way; then it hurt some more, and Faith's voice said, "Wes! Come on, Wes. Come on, now. Don't you fucking do this to me -- "

That was a voice he should go toward. She needed him. He made a heart-cracking effort, and almost felt her holding him up in her hands; but then he fell again into himself, and further down, and his mind's eye opened, and --

\-- and he was standing on a precipice over a desolate landscape, with someone, in someone, and in the same instant spiraled away, losing view of a tall lanky man gripping for dear life at a dead tree --

"Wesley! It's the demon. Spit it out!" All at once he heard Faith's voice clearly, and knew she was shaking him till his bones rattled. In an impulse of obedience he made a jerk like a sneeze and expelled something invisible and horrible that left him with a noise like a squeak and a sob. He would have sunk to his knees if Faith had not been gripping him by the fronts of his coat. He hurt all over, but especially around the face: he understood intensely just how hard Faith had been hitting him. It felt like his jaw had been dislocated. He found his feet under him and put a hand to his aching face, with an audible wince.

"Many thanks," he croaked.

"Look at me," she demanded. "Is it gone?" He made himself look into her eyes, though that hurt too: he was raw everywhere, even his heart. He nodded mutely.

"Good," she said. "Don't let it back in."

Wesley shook his head.

Faith let go of him, gently, and moved back to her end of the bier. "When you're ready," she said, "we should get going again. We're burning daylight. Such as it is."

Fuck this forest. Wesley really wished he could cry. He gripped his knees briefly, feeling shaky, then looked up at Faith, who was still watching him carefully. "Why is it," he said hoarsely, "that when you get possessed by a suicide demon I nearly get the life choked out of me, and when I get possessed by a suicide demon I nearly get my head knocked off my shoulders?"

Faith smirked at him. "You're just lucky that way, I guess," she said. "Come on. Let's get the hell out of here."

*

"Tea," Elisabeth said.

Yes. Tea. Definitely worth getting to his feet for. Brian let them haul him up to his considerable length and surveyed the wreck of the circle. The whole thing looked smaller than when he'd begun.

On his way to the kitchen Brian noticed that the floor was much closer than he was used to seeing it; then realized it was because he'd sunk to his knees and was about to fall on his face. Buffy was at his side at once. There was no way a woman Buffy's size should have been able to lift him, but with Elisabeth on his other side providing leverage, she brought him to his feet with a hand under his arm, then with her arm round his waist carried him almost bodily into the next room. "Oh how ridiculous," he heard himself say, "I'm terribly sorry."

"Put him at the table," someone said, and he was plopped into a chair. There was a hubbub all round him, like leaves in a wind, and he wanted Elisabeth near him, but she had moved away. He was shaking. Someone put a fleece blanket round his shoulders. Then Elisabeth was back, putting his hands round a warm cup. "Drink this," she said, and as he obeyed their eyes met over the rim of the cup. There passed between them a sudden unspoken understanding; her concern, unalloyed by indecent triumph, went straight to Brian's heart. He closed his stinging eyes and sipped thirstily at the sharp-hot tea; it had far more milk and sugar than Elisabeth knew he liked, but each sip revived him more and more.

"Don't worry, Brian," Willow said. "It takes a little while to get settled back in your body." Brian tried to give her a self-possessed nod, but managed only a blink and a shiver. He buried his face in the cup of tea again.

Everyone was talking all at once, and as Brian reached the bottom of his tea, it began to dawn on him that the hubbub in the room was not only about him. "I don't want -- " Buffy was saying, and "We might as well -- " Rupert was saying, and "I don't mind talking to him," Willow said.

"The timing that man has, eh?" Elisabeth said to them; Brian took one hand from his teacup and reached to grasp hers tightly. He didn't know who they were talking about, and wondered if he should care.

Rupert snorted, and Buffy said wearily, "Okay. Let's hear what he has to say."

They were going to interrogate him about what he'd done, Brian thought, and sought to brace himself for an effort to relate his story dispassionately. He kept hold of Elisabeth's hand like a small boy clinging to his mother, and she let him.

There was the sound of a door opening and shutting, and in the next moment there were more people in the room -- or, actually, only one new person: Robson. Nobody offered Robson a seat, but he didn't seem to want to be seated. He nodded at Rupert, who nodded coolly back; then moved his eyes to Willow standing at the counter next to Rupert. "You must be Miss Rosenberg," he said. "I am gratified to make your acquaintance."

Willow was sizing him up with a light and whimsical air. "How's your lucky sixpence?" she asked him.

"Still lucky, I hope," Robson said, and on a fresh survey of the room saw Brian. "Ah, Mr Whitaker," he said. "I am glad to see you well."

Brian gave him a nod. Buffy said, "So what's the what?"

"The what," Robson said, "is that things have been moving rather swiftly on our end. For one thing, we have now managed to get...a full account from Dickinson about his associates' aims. The news...is not good."

"Do tell," Rupert said.

"You may jeer, Giles," Robson said, "but even you must be aware that this is not the sort of conspiracy that follows clear lines of allegiance. The primary actors in Dickinson's circle are dead, but we can't trust that the danger is past."

"What danger?" Buffy said.

"To the Slayers," Robson said to her, "and not the Slayers only, but the Watchers who hold their bond of guardianship, and our very heritage itself."

"But -- " Willow said.

But Robson was now looking at Rupert. "Madeleine Gillsworth," he said, "has somehow come into possession of an exhaustive list of all the Slayers now found or guarded by Watchers in the world since the Choosing."

A slow smile spread over Rupert's face. "Clever Dick," he murmured, and it was somehow clear to the room that he was not referring to Gillsworth. "She never said a word about it to me."

"Nor will she tell us who was her source for this information," Robson said dryly. "However, that must wait. In the meantime we have had to act quickly. After much discussion, the Council has agreed that the only way to preserve the integrity of our heritage is to invoke the power of the guardians' bond."

Rupert's eyebrows went up, and stayed up. "The Soulan Waer?"

Buffy said, "The Sula-what?"

"The Soulan Waer," he answered, still with his eyes on Robson. "It is a ritual by which Watchers combine the power of their guardianship for some specific purpose. It has not been often usable because there has not often been more than one Watcher holding such a bond in one place at one time. The last occasion it was used, I believe -- "

" -- was in 1422," Robson finished, "when a demon hunted down and killed several Slayers in quick succession. The Watchers who survived them pooled the power of their bonds to protect the new Slayer, who was quite young, until they could find the way for her to defeat the demon."

"So the bond doesn't die with one of the people in it?" Buffy said quietly. Brian observed the look that passed between her and Rupert, as opaque as it was heavy with import.

"Of course it doesn't," Rupert said. "It is a holy thing. I've explained this to you before."

There was a brief silence, then Buffy looked back at Robson. "So you're going to pool the power of the guardian Watchers you have. For what purpose?"

"To protect a representative Slayer from any maledictions that might affect the Slayers as a group."

"A circuit-breaker Slayer," Willow said, and Elisabeth snorted a little laugh.

"I can see a number of problems with that plan," Rupert said. "For one thing, I would think that most Watchers would be very reluctant to gather in one place, especially these days."

"You're not wrong about that," Robson said, with a small glance heavenward.

Rupert went on coolly. "And for another, it would not be certain that every Watcher concerned would wish to undertake or affirm the casting of the Soulan Waer."

"It is becoming something of an acid test," Robson agreed. All at once Brian realized how much tension the man was carrying: the deliberately slow breathing, the solid stance.

"And what do you want us to do about it?" Buffy said.

"We were hoping," Robson said, "that you would consent to be the Slayer protected."

There was a long and hostile silence. Then Buffy said, "Why me? Why not one of the Slayers you have?"

"It is an offer," Robson said.

Buffy looked at him, queenlike, from her seat at the table. "And what do you want in exchange?"

Robson took a long breath. "We want," he said, "Wesley Wyndam-Pryce."

"No deal," Buffy said, and Willow said, "To do what with? To kill? To torture?"

Robson looked at Willow. "To question."

"I don't trade people for protection," Buffy said, as Robson added: "It is imperative that we know the nature of the connection between him and Wolfram &amp; Hart."

"Oh," Buffy said, "you mean the connection we've just spent the morning completely severing?" and obligingly Willow reached into the patch pocket of her jeans and tossed the halves of the credit card to the table.

Robson looked at them, and the beginnings of a smile touched his face. "Dickinson suspected the existence of such an object. It appears he was right about that, and about who had it in his possession." His eyes raised to Brian's, and Brian met his gaze calmly.

"So it appears," Rupert said, "that we are bargaining from a position of strength."

Robson hesitated; then with an air of taking a plunge, he said, "I would say yes. Except for one thing. There is still the question of the Scythe."

"What about it?" Buffy said, flatly.

"The Scythe," Robson said, "is the proposed terminus for the action of the Soulan Waer. When it comes to the hand of the protected Slayer, the invocation will reach its completion."

"And what happens if the Council gets hold of the Scythe before it comes to Buffy's hand?" Elisabeth said, her hand gripping Brian's. "You'll hold it hostage?"

"We would not betray Miss Summers," Robson said. "As Giles said a minute ago, the bond of guardianship is a holy thing. One can fail to do justly by it, but one cannot use it for a false purpose."

"Perhaps not," Rupert said dryly, "but it would still be the Council bargaining from strength, wouldn't it."

"I don't trust them," Willow said to Buffy.

"If we don't do this," Robson said urgently to Buffy, "the rogue elements will destroy the Council, and our heritage with it."

Buffy said quietly, "I'll have to fight the rogues regardless. If it is time for the Council to die, why should I try to stop it?"

"To die," Robson said, "or to change." When Buffy made no response, he looked at her in naked appeal. "It should be clear to all by now that our strengths are complementary, that we need one another. We went through the Harrowing together."

"No one went through the Harrowing together," Buffy said. Shattered, Brian thought, remembering; everyone in a different piece. For a moment, no one in the kitchen moved: a silence reigned as of the stillness of shards on the floor. Robson's eyes never left Buffy's face.

Finally she spoke. "If I do this," she said, "how does it work?"

Robson controlled a brief tremble and raised his chin stoically. "The proposed plan," he said, "is that I remain here for surety, while my driver would take you to the place where the Council are gathered with the Watchers and Slayers who will undertake the Soulan Waer."

"And where is this place?" Elisabeth said, warily.

"Wyndam Hall," Robson said.

"Of course," Rupert murmured.

"I don't like it," Elisabeth said to Buffy.

Willow agreed. "There is no way you're going alone to a stronghold like Wyndam Hall."

"She doesn't have to go alone," Brian said, startling everyone in the room including himself. They all looked at him.

"If I go with her," he said calmly, feeling their undivided attention, "I could observe the process. I feel sure the Council would stand honor for my diplomatic safety as part of the legation."

"You are sure of that, are you?" Robson said, with a very dry smile.

"Well, it wouldn't hurt to have a token," Brian said. "Give me your lucky sixpence."

For a moment Robson looked around at the others, who looked steadily back. Then he reached into his pocket. Brian put down his teacup and caught the sixpence as Robson tossed it. He held it curled in his hand and looked at Willow, who nodded.

"Brian," Buffy said, "are you sure you're up to this?"

"I'm all right," Brian said, and knew it to be true. Elisabeth squeezed his hand gently, and he pressed it back. "I do hope it doesn't take too long, though. I'd like to get in a nap before tea."

*

It was as the afternoon was closing on evening, darker and sooner than either of them liked, that Faith realized they were lost.

"We should have hit that cordon by now," she said uncertainly.

"D'you think we're too far west of it?" Wesley grunted. The bier was making his arms ache, and though they'd switched positions twice, he wanted nothing more than simply to put the thing down. He couldn't shake an uneasy feeling that carrying Satsuki's body through the forest was inviting every demon in the forest to follow them; to make things worse (as if that were necessary), the corpse was descending further into decomposition with every hour. Wesley had taken to averting his eyes from the swelling and breathing through his mouth.

Faith stopped. "This is all wrong," she said. "I have a bad feeling about this."

"Here, put her down," Wesley said, and when they had lowered the bier, swung his satchel forward to dig in its depths. "Ah, here it is." He pulled out the GPS unit and turned it on.

"Didn't anybody tell you those things don't work in here?" Faith said, just as the display flicked up to show "No Signal" in pixellated Japanese and English.

"Damn," Wesley said. He lowered the useless gadget and looked at Faith. "So what should we do -- keep going?"

"I'd say yes," Faith said, "except that's not our only problem. They're coming after us."

"Yes." Wesley cast a glance over the sea of shadows all around them. "I was hoping I was wrong about that. It may come to fighting."

Faith nodded. "So what do we got?"

Wesley thought about it. "We have the Scythe, a crossbow and a gun. Not much use against incorporeals, but I expect not everything in here is. We have -- " he rummaged in his satchel -- "a bottle of paraffin, a knife, a pair of socks, a torch, and a few snacks."

"I've got my torch, a roll of twine, some water, Satsuki-san's knives, and some dried fish. And of course -- " she gestured between them -- "we have her body and all that goes with it."

Wesley stood with his gaze lost in the middle distance. It was a pretty paltry inventory. "Faith," he said slowly, "we may have to leave her behind."

"No," Faith said at once. "I'm not leaving this forest without her."

"Then you might not leave this forest at all," Wesley said, looking her in the eye. "Sometimes surviving is all you can do."

"No!" Faith said. "Wes, what am I going to tell her parents -- that I came in here, found her dead, left her to rot, sayonara? You think I'm gonna let them think about their daughter in here forever, no cremation, no funeral rites, no nothing? Fuck _that_ shit."

Cremation. Wesley stared down at the body, then across the deepening darkness into the heart of the trees. Funeral rites. He felt, as one might sense mosquitoes in the air, the creeping chill and numbness of the demons' approach. Faith made a sudden motion and a noise of disgust, and he knew she felt it too. Then both their attention was snared by the fleeting view of a dark-bright form and the echo of a distant howl of anguish.

"The _yurei_," Faith muttered. "Great." She hawked and spat.

Wesley made his decision. He turned to her. "The situation is this," he said. "We are rapidly being surrounded by the demonic population of Aokigahara. We don't have a clear way out of the forest, and we owe Satsuki-san the best rescue we can give her. There's a rite for releasing her soul that we can do here. It invokes a fire strong enough that it should clear the canopy to get us a signal from this." He held up the GPS unit. "The benefits of this plan are that we gain a beacon to get us out of here, and Satsuki's body is honorably retired."

He would have gone on, but Faith said, "Wait a minute. You know, when we did inventory a minute ago, you kinda forgot to mention that you _know some magic_."

"I didn't forget. I left it out of account," Wesley said, "because of the drawback. Which is that though this magic will drive back the demons, it will also attract attention. If we do this, both the Council and the rogue Watchers will know exactly where we are."

"A problem to deal with if and when we get out of the forest," Faith said.

"Exactly." Wesley paused, and then added, "I'm afraid it doesn't leave you with any easier explanation for Satsuki's family."

Faith thought a moment, then shrugged one shoulder. "I'll deal with it. Let's do it."

Wesley remembered seeing a good flat boulder a couple of clearings back. In the last of the feeble daylight they hiked back to it with the bier and settled it onto the rock, shimming the poles flat with some loose stones. Wesley duckwalked about the clearing picking up light branches till he had four sturdy ones. "Right," he said, "you gather fuel for the fire. I'm going to make the anchor lights. Quick. There's not much time." With the knife he cut each of his socks in half and lashed the resulting tubes of cloth to the ends of his four sticks with Faith's twine. He honed the other ends to points, working quickly in the light of his torch set on the rock, then set them upright and soaked each sock-covered end with paraffin. "Is the pyre ready?" he asked.

"Yeah," Faith said.

"Good." He tossed her two of the makeshift torches. "Drive these into the ground at each end of the pyre as firmly as you can." He did the same on his end: it was difficult, as the ground was almost all rock. Sweating, he stood up to see Faith on the other side of the pyre swearing at her second torch and twisting it down with teeth set. He grinned, and she saw him.

"You think this is fun," she accused.

"Well, this doesn't quite top going headfirst out a third-story jailhouse window, but it has its merits," Wesley said.

"Wesley, I swear to God," she said, "we get out of this, I am gonna punch your face."

"Oh good, something to look forward to." He tossed her his knife; Faith caught it smoothly, dug a hole for the torch, and tossed it back.

When the torches were all in place, Wesley lifted his hands to the orans position and concentrated within himself. He spoke the first incantation, and flame sprang up on the torch-heads. The black smoothness of Satsuki's short hair, and the silk of her kimono, took shine from the new light. Around them, a wave of howls rose as if in protest.

"Right," he said, "she's protected. Chant with me when you've got the sounds." Across the pyre, Faith nodded with her eyes on Satsuki's face, and Wesley began the chant.

With each repetition he raised his voice over the sounds of the demons surrounding them. A red haze grew within the anchor lights and rose as the chant continued, rose stronger when Faith's voice finally joined his. The haze grew orange: then all at once, white -- and was a sheet of flame that enveloped the rock and the bier and funnelled skyward. Wesley stumbled back from the wall of heat and kept chanting, till the fire opened like a chrysanthemum and shed light in all directions. Wesley's voice was blasted from shouting and heat. He watched, delighted, as the light shot through the canopy of the trees above, hot enough to singe away the branches to simple ash, and drew with it a cry of release as of a soul escaping into clear air: then another, and another. There were a lot of trapped souls in Aokigahara, Wesley thought; and in the transport of his delight he jumped and whooped like a boy.

He saw Faith coming round the pyre to meet him, a girl-shaped space of dark solidity; he grabbed her hand and shouted again, as they watched the lights and cries sweeping up from the sullen ground to the unseen sky. When at last the fire seemed to dim a little, Wesley pulled out the GPS once more. The light of its display was grey and unlovely compared with the chrysanthemum fire, but it showed clearly their position. Gingerly Wesley approached the fire and took one of the anchor lights from its place: it was hot, but just cool enough to hold in his hand. "Take this," he said, pushing the GPS into Faith's hands in case she couldn't hear him. "Let's go."

She turned back to the fire briefly, and bowed, a gesture of farewell and respect. Wesley did the same. Then, with the light at their back, they followed their beacon.

It took many steps, around clutches of trees and over rises of ground, before they had left the fire completely behind them; but as the night deepened they found themselves depending ever more on the torch Wesley held, carrying the memory of the fire. It kept the demons at bay and sustained the signal from the satellite. Faith carried the GPS in one hand and clung to Wesley's free hand with the other; and in the hollow of darkness they continued.

They found the cordon; they passed the sad harvest of corpses; they reached the feeble end of one of the trails and stumbled gratefully down it. By this time Wesley had his arm round her shoulders, and Faith had her arm round his waist, and they kept one another upright when they stumbled.

The path was broadening, and the trees were thinning. The beacon in Wesley's hand had been steadily dimming, and soon it flickered and went out. Wesley dropped it and pulled out his moribund electric torch. "Not much further now," Wesley said, in a haggard voice; he felt Faith nod, and they plodded on.

An eternity later, they staggered together out from under the trees and breathed deep of untainted air. Overhead the clouds were dissipating, and a few bright stars shone. "We did it," Faith murmured. She controlled a deep shiver and moved out from under his embrace.

"Yes," Wesley said. "Let's -- "

But a sound interrupted him, a sound he knew very well: the crass click of a round being chambered.

"That's far enough, I think," said a voice. "Stop where you are."


	8. Magdalen, Act Three and Last

The car that would take Buffy and Brian to Wyndam Hall was black -- of course -- and driven by a blank-faced man of uncertain age who never gave either of them a glance as they got in. As they pulled out of the lane onto the paved road, Brian reflected that just because he behaved like a servant who had no interest in them except as a duty didn't mean he wouldn't be listening to everything they said. But, he reflected further, there was little reason to care whether the Council knew what he might have to say about them.

Brian had been waiting in the kitchen doorway while Rupert snagged Buffy's attention before they left.

"Buffy," he said hesitantly, "are you sure you want to do this? The Soulan Waer -- "

"Is the spell what Robson says it is? Is he telling the truth?" Buffy's voice was quiet, though Robson was outside giving instructions to the driver.

Rupert was still hesitant. "Yes," he said, "but -- "

"Is it dangerous?"

"N-no -- not dangerous." Rupert rubbed his forehead. "It's just that.... Maybe I should come, too."

She said, in the wisecracking tone Brian had heard her use with no one else, "I think probably one-half of us should stay here," and he gave her a look. "Besides," Buffy added, "there's something we'll need you and Willow to do. Brian's flat needs to have wards put on it, and he should have an amulet like the one Xander's got. He can't stay cooped up here at Pyke's Lea forever -- he'll go crazy."

"Damn," Brian said from the doorway. "Is it that obvious?"

They both snorted, looking round at him; and then Robson came back in.

Now, in the car, Brian looked over at Buffy. She was sitting very contained in her seat, and though her expression gave nothing away, Brian thought she was nervous.

He asked her: "What is this bond they're talking about? And why is it holy?"

She looked at him, then away out the window, thoughtful. "If a Slayer is guarded by a Watcher before she comes of age, a bond is formed between them. It's holy because it's human. And I guess," she added, "coming of age changes it, but doesn't exactly make it go away."

That much, Brian could observe for himself. "And how does one determine when a Slayer's come of age?"

"Well -- " Buffy looked back at him -- "the cutoff used to be eighteen."

"So," Brian said, meeting her gaze, "this Soulan Waer is sort of the anti-Cruciamentum, it sounds like."

She tilted her head, reassessing her thoughts in the light of his words. "Yeah. And it sounds like the Council is having to choose between the two."

Brian said, "Do you trust them?"

"No," Buffy said, "and I don't really care what happens to the Council. But if there are still Slayers and Watchers together in the world...," she looked out the window again -- "I don't want them to be at the mercy of other people's choices."

"That's a very generous position to take," Brian said quietly.

Buffy looked at her hands in her lap. "This is much more messy than I'd like."

"Par for the course, isn't it?"

She gave a short laugh. "You can say that again."

Brian smiled at her briefly, then turned to watch the countryside slide swiftly past. He thought it was going to take an effort to evade the thoughts that lay under the surface of his mind (_a thousand ways to lose him_) while he waited for them to reach their destination.

But the next thing he knew, the car was slowing to pull through a tall set of iron gates that opened by no visible human operation. He lifted his head from where it had fallen against the seat rest and blinked blearily. "Are we there already?"

"Looks like. You got your nap in, anyway," Buffy said.

Brian rubbed his eyes and sat up expectantly. But they proceeded on a narrow manicured road through the wooded park for a quarter of an hour without any change. "Christ," Brian said, "does this park never end?"

"Dunno," Buffy said. "Looks like this is one meeting you'll have a hard time storming out of."

Brian snorted.

Buffy glanced at him and said, "I'm thinking we'd better hope it doesn't come to fighting our way out of here."

"You think?" Brian said.

"But if it does come to fighting," she said quietly, "I want you to stay behind me at all times."

"I'll do what you say," Brian promised her. "But I'd like it if you say I can throw a few punches myself."

"I think we can work something out," Buffy said with a faint smile, as the car cleared the trees and pulled across an impossibly smooth lawn before -- Brian couldn't call it a house. They came to a stop, and without waiting for anyone's say-so, Buffy got out. Brian followed, stretching half-consciously and staring at the edifice before him, at the hundred gleaming windows and the elegant lines and the ancient stone.

"Wesley grew up _here_?" he said faintly.

"Really puts Pemberley to shame, doesn't it?" Buffy said, breaking the spell. Brian grinned over at her.

"Thought you had a reputation to uphold. You've read _Pride and Prejudice_?"

"Saw the movie with Colin Firth," she said, with her own grin.

"Mm, and Jennifer Ehle," Brian agreed reverently. "1995 was a good vintage for Jane Austen adaptations. Though I had a few period quibbles with the directorial choices."

She rolled her eyes at his diction. "It's incurable, isn't it?" she said, affectionately.

"I'm afraid so."

"So," she said, "were you hoping to be mistress of this place?"

"Not exactly," Brian snorted, just as the front doors opened. "I'd rather make it my bitch."

With her eyes on the two figures who emerged, Buffy said, "I think you just might get your chance."

One of the figures was male and dressed in a nondescript suit, to Brian's eye as obviously a Watcher as any Watcher he'd met, but maybe that was the context. The other figure, surprisingly, was female and wore a long grey habit and a veil over dark hair. As they closed the distance to where Buffy and Brian stood waiting, more details became clear: the man was middle-aged and disfigured by a set of vicious scars along one side of his face and neck; the hair along that side was prematurely white. The woman was younger than her mature movements suggested, and her clear dark-eyed gaze was fixed on Buffy, who stirred at her approach. This, Brian thought instinctively, must be a Slayer.

"Miss Summers," said the man when they met. "It is an honor to make your acquaintance."

"Thank you," Buffy said coolly.

"And you must be Mr Whitaker." Brian gave a short nod. "My name is Knowles. This is Sister Melita Saidon, of the Oracles of St. John in Malta."

"Not to be confused with the Knights of St. John, I expect?" Brian said, and Sister Melita smiled at him.

"Sister Melita has joined us," he said, "to lend support to our efforts, though she is of age and has no Watcher."

Sister Melita laid a hand over her heart and bowed to them gracefully. At his side, Brian could feel Buffy relaxing a little, and thought that it was very well played of Knowles to bring Sister Melita to greet them. But then she turned to Knowles and said in lightly accented English, "Shall we return to the house?" and Brian had to revise his thought: Sister Melita seemed not to be under the hand of anyone and was here under her own auspices. And had he heard Knowles correctly that she was an Oracle? Formidable, Brian thought.

The inside of Wyndam Hall was even more impressive than the outside, and the more so because there was nothing in the least ostentatious about its opulence. Brian caught a glimpse through a polished door of a massive library that looked like it had had centuries of standing together as a collection, which it probably had. The whole place had an air of immovability that was both reassuringly protective and a temptation to inertia. Brian tried to put himself in Wesley's place, and imagined living a childhood among these ancient books and gleaming corridors. He emerged from the exercise feeling rather oppressed.

They were joined by more people as they progressed deeper into the house. Knowles was explaining to Buffy the logistics of gathering as many Watchers and Slayers who were able and willing to come. Brian thought he heard a certain hauteur in Knowles's tone when he touched on the expenses they had gone to, and remembered that in the aftermath of the last battle of Sunnydale, Willow had hacked into certain accounts held by the Council and emptied them for the Slayers' use. He couldn't quite keep the smile out of his face at the thought of the furor that must have wrought.

Knowles slowed at last before a set of double doors, which opened as they reached them; and Brian and Buffy went through. The room was oval-shaped and large, with windows set close to the ceiling like a church's nave. The windows were designed to cast light over the dome of the ceiling, a dark blue spangled with gold-leaf stars in a pattern Brian knew to be significant but did not recognize. He did, however, understand the significance of the room itself.

"Bloody hell," he murmured, "it's the Star Chamber." He looked at Buffy, who had glanced at him inquiringly. "We're doomed," he told her.

"Well, finally," she said with a small grin, "familiar territory."

The room was full of people, both men and women; the majority of the women were very young, and one of them looked no older than eleven. Knowles approached them once again with what looked like a delegation of three Watchers: a thin man of indeterminate age, a stoutish, proud-backed man with silver hair and mustaches, and an elderly woman with darting, intelligent eyes. Knowles said: "May I introduce Gareth Bartholomew, who occupies the head chair in the Council -- " he indicated the thin man, who merely offered them a blink -- "Madeleine Gillsworth, whose expertise we are graced with today -- " Gillsworth gave Buffy a rather discomfiting smile, and Buffy jerked a nod -- "and Roger Wyndam-Pryce, who has lent us the use of his home for this enterprise."

So this was Wesley's father. Brian stared hard at him, assessing his face and his waistcoat and the shine of his shoes. He looked as though he ought to be pleasant; had not Brian known otherwise, he would not have guessed at the history that made Elisabeth hiss every time Roger's name was mentioned. In return Roger took him in with a gentle, self-possessed smile the mirror opposite of Wesley's awkward aloofness; and Brian said with dead calm: "We are much obliged to you for your hospitality, I am sure." Roger met his eye on a nod; his eyes were the same blue as Wesley's. Brian smiled grimly.

"They have nearly finished drawing the circle," Knowles said. "If you are ready, we shall proceed in a few moments."

"No point beating around the bush," Buffy said, her voice sounding flatly unsubtle in this elegant room.

The Watchers left them to return to where the others were gathering in the center of the room. Brian leaned down to Buffy and said in a carrying whisper, "Does he look a bit androidish to you?"

Buffy bit her lips and kicked him on the ankle, and when he grinned, she said, "Behave," out of the corner of her mouth.

"Till you say not to?" Brian murmured back. But before Buffy could reply, Sister Melita approached her and with another slight bow said, "They are ready for you."

"Right," Buffy said. She gave Brian a careless salute and walked into the center of the knot of waiting Watchers and Slayers. They closed around her, and Brian felt a shiver begin in his gut.

Sister Melita did not join the circle. She stayed at Brian's side, calmly watching. There was the sound of a Watcher's voice, giving directions; and then a murmur of assent rose from the others. To Brian the sound was deeply sinister.

"I don't like this," he muttered, curling and uncurling his hands. "I really don't like this."

Sister Melita took his hand, stilling it, and clasped it gently. "Don't worry," she told him. "It will be all right."

"How d'you know?" Brian said, not caring if he sounded rude. "Did you see it in a vision?"

She was unperturbed. "No. It's a question of context."

"Context?" Brian said sharply, but she tugged at his hand before he could go on. "Look," she said, "look at the circle. That's not how the Soulan Waer was done in older times."

Brian looked, reluctantly obedient. The men and women surrounding Buffy had resolved themselves into a double circle; he saw that the Slayers were included in this spell, not as objects of the inner circle, but woven with the Watchers in both the inner and outer rings. As he watched, Slayers and Watchers together raised one hand palm up, each circle toward the other, so that they formed a crowned knot of human courtesy. Brian clung to Sister Melita's hand and was silent.

"I did see you, however," she added, "some days ago. Then when the Watchers came to our abbey I thought I had better ask permission to go with them." Brian was startled into looking at her, and she went on. "You were at your desk, trying to decide what to do. I think you have decided now. This is difficult for you."

Brian looked away.

"You are a very compassionate person, Mr Whitaker," she said. "Your friends complain, but they know this is a great asset."

"I've made mistakes," Brian said, swallowing the faint ache in his throat.

"Of course." There was no hint in her voice that his mistakes were an amateur's anomaly, and something in Brian relaxed. He pressed her hand back as she held it. "There is one mistake you have not yet made," she said, "and that is to believe that you can possess or use compassion. It possesses and uses you. For better and worse."

He nodded wordlessly.

"That is your guide," she said. "The love that moves the sun and the other stars." And this made him look at her again.

"Even in a hell dimension?" he asked quietly.

"Even there," Sister Melita said. "Look, they're finished."

The circle was indeed unraveling, and before Brian's eyes became merely an aggregate of individuals. "That's it?" he said, watching in disbelief as Buffy passed out of the circle, shaking hands with one person and another.

"That's all," Sister Melita said, cheerfully. "Now you can go home."

Buffy was coming toward them, her face calm and unreadable. "Oh joy, oh rapture," Brian said. And then in a low voice, "Think good thoughts for us."

"I will," Sister Melita said.

*

"Ah, Mr Bingaman," Wesley said, wishing intensely that his gun were in his hand rather than the inside pocket of his coat. "It's been a long time." Beside him, Faith went still, which meant she was ready to fight. So far, however, Wesley couldn't see how to provoke a fight that wouldn't immediately result in their deaths: he could hear a step behind them that wasn't troubling to be stealthy. Two men ahead of them, armed; a third behind them, also probably armed; their only advantage the relative darkness of starlight and the faint lamps that marked the town, too far away to call for assistance.

"Too long," Bingaman answered him, with the gloating smile in his voice that surely had worked Faith's last nerve in Kyoto. "You're a hard man to catch up with, Wesley. Fortunately it was obvious where you would go -- to the Slayer for whose sake you defied the Council. It was just a matter of time before we'd be able to track you."

"And for what purpose?" Wesley asked, with the politeness that in his father was nothing short of an insult.

"Oh, come. You put a stick in the spokes of the wheel in Paris; surely you know what we're here for."

"Yes," Wesley said, "I put a stick in the spokes of the wheel. I suppose Dickinson is up and about again, looking for mages to help him with his little task?"

"As if we needed Dickinson to carry on with our mission," the man next to Bingaman said. "All we need is that pretty little weapon your Slayer is carrying."

"She's her own Slayer," Wesley said with deadly aridity, "and I believe she's already made her opinion quite clear."

"As we have made ours," Bingaman said, raising his gun, which glinted lazily in the half-light.

Wesley felt and heard Faith breathe out. So far she had not taken the bait and answered back; but now, with a deliberate motion, she drew the Scythe from over her shoulder and let it catch the light in an answer of its own.

"What," she said, "you mean this thing? So why haven't you shot us already?"

"Oh, we're not going to shoot you," Bingaman said, "unless we have to. No; we will simply conduct you back into the forest -- " Faith laughed aloud -- "remove your weapons, post a guard, and be on our way with what we came for."

"Yeah, I don't think so," Faith said, with another laugh. "The only way I'm going back in that forest is feet first."

"Well, we'd be happy to oblige you," said Bingaman's colleague.

"And then what?" Wesley said, in a hard voice to mask his desperation. "Surely the Council is onto your game by now. You're no further forward."

"Oh, Wesley," Bingaman sighed, "do you really think the Council will stop us? Do you think there are none in the Council who share our aims? You're far more 'rogue' to them than we are; and no one has forgotten how willing you are to kill Watchers -- indeed, members of your family -- for the sake of your outlaw friends. At this point we can even lay the death of a girl at your door. So let us not have any more nonsense. Your race is run."

"It is," Wesley said, "several times over. Therefore I respectfully decline to cooperate."

"I think that's Watcher for 'screw you,'" Faith added. And she whirled to catch the Watcher behind them across the head with the flat of the Scythe. In the same motion she ducked, and Wesley dived aside, as the shots of both the others split the quiet night. Wesley rolled; more shots rang out; every moment he expected to be hit. He found his feet again in time to see that all three Watchers had converged on Faith: Bingaman aimed with his gun, and as Faith dodged the other two closed in, the one behind her with a shining blade in his hand. Wesley slammed across the distance, but it was already happening before his eyes: Bingaman fired, the Watcher at his right hand found a grip on the haft of the Scythe and tugged, Faith jerked it back; and the honed point of the other end took the Watcher behind full in the solar plexus. He made a wet, pained sound and slipped unstrung to the ground.

Faith turned, and when she saw what she'd done, all fight fell away from her. She dropped the Scythe to the ground and brought up trembling hands to stare at them blindly.

Fury took Wesley like a surge of electric force. He put his boot on the Scythe just as the Watcher was bending for it, and let him taste his other knee at velocity. As Wesley gathered Faith unresponsive to his side, the Watcher fell backward with a groan and did not get up again. Wesley pulled out his gun at last and levelled it straight at Bingaman's eye.

"Ah," Bingaman said calmly. "Stalemate."

"No," Wesley said, still furious. "Vengeance."

"Then why not fire now?" Faith shivered against him at the sound of her own words thrown back at them. "You won't," Bingaman said. "Cold blood gets your hands dirty." Faith shivered again, harder.

"Who says my blood is cold?" Wesley answered, lifting his gun for a higher aim.

Bingaman's smirk was audible. "You didn't kill Dickinson. You'll try to keep to a thread of honor you don't have. And you'll try to win a war you've already -- " But instead of finishing, Bingaman jerked and spat blood, and as the report of the gun sounded an instant later, he began to sink.

Wesley was fairly sure he hadn't fired yet, but anything could have happened in this unreal half-state, between the forest and the stars. But Bingaman fell, and behind him stood another: a man dressed in dark clothing, dark-haired and dark-eyed. As Wesley watched, he pocketed his gun and stood looking at them impassively.

Faith stirred, and straightened away from Wesley. "Ichiro-san," she breathed.

None of this was any reassurance to Wesley. He kept his aim steady, now at the young man. But Faith tugged at his sleeve. "Who is it?" he asked her.

Instead of answering him, Faith went toward the young man, getting in the way of Wesley's aim. Wesley lowered it, carefully, watching them with his pulse still racing in his skin.

Slowly Faith pulled her pack down to open at her feet. From it she drew a dark oblong shape that Wesley knew to be the silk box containing Satsuki's knives. She straightened and faced the young man as if he were a firing squad.

"Ichiro-san," she said; the young man made no motion, nor did he change expression. "I went into the forest to find Satsuki-san," Faith went on, startling Wesley; she was speaking simple but perfectly adequate Japanese. "I am sorry to tell you, I was too late to save her. The only thing we could do for her was to make a pyre and release her soul from the demons. I am very sorry."

Ichiro did not move, but Wesley thought a sense of grief had crept into his stance. Faith went on, "She died as a warrior. I brought back the only thing I could." She held up the box in both hands, and then bowed, astonishing Wesley further; he would never have thought to see Faith making any gesture of humility, even if the humility were a matter of a warrior's pride. For a horrible moment Wesley thought the man would let her stand there holding the box forever; to his utter relief he saw Ichiro return the bow and reach to accept the box. When it was out of her hands, Faith was herself again: she gripped one elbow against a shiver and said again, "Tell her parents....I am very sorry."

Wesley returned his gun to his coat, as Ichiro took him in with a glance. "My sister is dead," he said, in an English as simple as Faith's Japanese, "and now my cousin. And you are not safe, I think. Come with me." He turned without further words and walked away. Faith gathered up her pack, carelessly, and followed.

After an instant's indecision, Wesley reached down and picked up the Scythe, and followed after.

They walked stumbling through darkness until they reached a car, and following Ichiro's lead, got in. "Head down," he advised them as they piled in the back seat; and obediently Wesley scrunched low in his seat till only his eyes showed above the window. Beside him Faith did the same, silently. She made no move to reclaim the Scythe where it lay between them.

Ichiro drove; lights washed over them, turned and spun in a highway dance; then after a long time they were in darkness again, and rumbling over an uneven lane. They came to a stop, and Ichiro cut the engine. "One moment, please," he said, "I will come back." He got out, shutting the door behind him. Wesley was near sleep by this time, aching with cramp, and dazed; but he could hear a deep, soft bell and low voices. Then Ichiro came back, and opened the door on Wesley's side.

"They will keep you safe here," he said. "Come."

Wesley got out. He refused to take the Scythe; and Faith was forced to pick it up to get out after him. She did not meet his eyes, but looked instead around her.

They were in the courtyard of a monastery, from what Wesley could see lit by a few lamps in the deep night. A smaller, older man gestured the way forward; beside him another monk carried a heavy, bright electric torch.

He was so tired. He could hear Ichiro speaking to Faith, but this time in Japanese, and his brain couldn't do Japanese anymore. He obeyed the gesture of the older monk, and followed the younger into a house, stepping with several stumbles out of his boots on the way. The monk took him down a corridor to a small bedroom, turned on the light, and bowed gently. Wesley dropped his head in what he hoped passed for a bow of thanks, shrugged out of his coat, and fell across the bed without even turning off the light.

*

On the way back to Pyke's Lea, Brian kept a careful eye on Buffy. As on the drive down, she sat quite contained within herself, but her air had changed; she seemed -- pensive, even sad -- and abstracted. Impulsively he reached to touch her hand where it lay on the seat between them. "Hey," he said. "Are you all right?"

She looked over at him and smiled slowly. "Yeah, I'm okay. Don't worry, it didn't hurt."

"All right," Brian said, uncertainly. "But -- you seem a little -- " He stopped. "I won't pry, if you don't want."

"It's all right," Buffy said. "But really, you don't have to worry. Robson was telling the truth. It was on the up-and-up. Better than I expected. The Slayers and the Watchers shared the load."

"So Sister Melita pointed out to me," Brian said, and, "There's a lot I don't understand."

"About Slayers and Watchers? I don't know if anybody does." Buffy looked away out the window.

"It reminds me -- " Brian hesitated a little in his thought -- "it reminds me a little of courtly love...only, everyone involved is a knight. That complicates matters, I expect."

Buffy turned to him with an amused look. "Courtly love?"

Brian flushed and tried to laugh. "You don't want to hear the lecture," he said.

"No, I do," Buffy said, smiling. "Tell me."

He regarded her silently for a moment, then looked away into the middle distance, gathering his thoughts. Then he drew a short, professorial breath that made Buffy smile afresh.

"The whole concept of courtly love," he told her, "depends from a single image -- of a knight kneeling to his lady. It arose in the Middle Ages when there was an established civilization that included knights and ladies in its structure. When it came, it came as a revelation. It spawned several kinds of poetry and song; it was a driving force in Dante's Divine Comedy; and it became an instantly recognizable way of talking about men and women down to the present day. We know it now mainly as a metaphor, but the image in those days had specific features that have dropped out of the common memory, or at least lost their original significance." He stopped and looked to see if she was still with him; she was. "The lady in the image," he went on, "was usually of a higher social status than the knight. And she was usually married to someone else. Therefore the knight's devotion did not, and could not, depend on sexual consummation for its power as an image." Brian went on slowly, absorbing the implications in his own heart. "It was an image set apart from the usual round of possessing and being possessed. It was a -- a type, an analogue, of what we call religious devotion in the mortal here-and-now. You aspire to give, to yield, the whole of yourself to the clemency of another. And even, perhaps, to sacrifice the hope of favor that brought you to pledge your devotion in the first place."

He stopped. The interior of the car and the passing countryside flared bright in his vision; and he sat still and breathed quietly till the tears subsided without falling. Then he cleared his throat gently and went on.

"Nowadays when we think of knights we mostly think of protection. But nobody knew better than the knight that to offer the lady protection would be...superfluous. She was already secure. That was part of the poignancy of the thing. The knight was an embodiment of power; and yet by love he's completely undone."

It was his standard boilerplate synopsis of courtly love, the one that with students was invariably followed by the thumping of five or six books down in front of them, to expand the concept into its unfurling fractals of history. And it seemed to him that he had never before understood what it meant.

He took his gaze from the far distance and looked over at Buffy. She was looking at him with a very small, very sad smile. "What d'you think?" he said, lightly. "Too dry?"

She shook her head. "No," she said. "Thank you."

With a hard sniff Brian settled back against the seat. "Anytime," he said.

Back at Pyke's Lea they found Robson deep in consultation with Rupert, Elisabeth, and Willow, with an empty teacup before him on the table. They looked up expectantly as Buffy and Brian came in.

"Well, it's done," Buffy said briskly, ignoring Rupert's intent look. Brian pulled a chair out from the kitchen table and dropped into it.

Robson looked at Buffy standing with arms folded and said, "Good, then. I had better be on my way. Thank you for the tea," he said to Elisabeth. "I'll be in touch," he added, pausing in the doorway, and then he was gone.

Brian felt no relief at Robson's departure: he felt tired to his bones. The cat leapt upon his lap and insisted on being petted, which Brian did mechanically, watching the others gather for what was clearly going to be another meeting.

"Buffy," Willow said, "did you see what Giles and I saw during the spell?"

"Yeah," Buffy said. She looked over at Brian. "It's a good thing you were the one we sent. I would have had a harder time doing the right thing."

Brian was still processing the fact that he wouldn't have to tell his story after all; then Buffy's words caught up with him. "There was a right thing to do?" he said, wearily.

She gave him a sympathetic smile. "You've got the wards on his flat?" she said to Willow.

"Yeah. And we've got him a talisman." She pulled a long fine chain out of her pocket and handed it over to Brian, the small flat pendant dangling. He took it. "You should wear that whenever you're outside your home," she told him. "I can't secure your rooms in college, so your flat's the only place you wouldn't need this. Be aware, it protects you from most magical attacks and gives you some warning of a physical one. But it's not impossible for you to be taken off guard even while you're wearing it, so be careful."

Silently Brian slipped the chain around his neck and slid the pendant down under his jumper and T-shirt. He was aware of a faint change in the air around him, but nothing that would ease the ache of fatigue, or the weary knowledge that he had just torpedoed his relationship with Wesley; and he suspected there was worse to come.

Sure enough, Rupert gave him a grim glance and said: "The Scythe. It's now imperative we find it."

"Yeah," Buffy said. "Any word on Faith?"

"Nothing. My sources are tapped out. She's not in Kyoto, and her translator is dead."

"Should we send someone to Japan after her? Will?"

"I could go," Willow said, "but I don't know Japanese, and I've always had a hard time getting a magical bead on Faith." Her tone had an edge to it that Brian couldn't interpret until he remembered what Buffy had said, that Faith had gone dark on Wesley's watch. He suddenly saw where this was going, and his fatigue doubled. He leaned his forehead on his hand, with his elbow braced on the table, and listened with his other hand stroking the cat in his lap.

"So," Buffy said with a frustrated sigh, "we don't know where the Scythe is, we don't know where Faith is, and we don't know where Wesley is. We're 0 for 3."

"Any chance they might be all in the same place?" Elisabeth said.

"Any chance that would be good news if it were true?" Buffy said.

Rupert cleared his throat. "It would at least suggest that Wesley did not willingly cooperate with the rogues," he said, "since it is more than unlikely that Faith would fall in with them as well."

"What if they promised she could be the only Slayer?" Willow said.

"No," Buffy said. "Even if she were tempted by an offer like that, she still wouldn't take it. Not from Watchers."

"We don't know what she'd do," Willow argued. "She's been effectively incommunicado for months. Ever since -- " she stopped.

"Ever since the conference on what to do about Dana," Rupert said calmly; but they could all hear the buried pain in his voice.

"Giles, it was not your fault," Willow said, with energy. "It's like Brian said: there wasn't a right thing to do. Sending her to that stable dimension was safest for everybody, and Faith -- "

"Yeah, but she's alone there, isn't she?" Elisabeth said quietly. "That's what Faith didn't like. I don't think she trusts us anymore."

"Did she ever?" Willow said. "I knew giving her the Scythe was -- " She stopped. "Never mind. I'm sorry. You're right that Faith wouldn't likely trust Watchers."

"She might trust Wesley, though," Elisabeth said, thoughtfully. "They worked together to bring down Angelus."

"Which brings us back to where we started," Buffy sighed. "If Wesley is with Faith...."

"-- they will be twice as impossible to find," Rupert said. "Wesley knows some magic. He can conceal them both from most location spells. And regardless of whether he is in sympathy with the rogues, it is now clear that the rogues are no longer in sympathy with him. So we can't use any of the Council's resources to find him either; he won't know which Watchers to trust."

"So our hands are tied," Buffy said.

"I think," Rupert said, "that until one of them surfaces we won't have any way forward."

"And what happens when they do?"

"We try to get into communication with them."

"What about the Council?" Buffy said flatly. "They're going to want in on any communication we have with Wesley."

"Especially if it helps them get to the Scythe first," Willow said.

"What about the Scythe?" Buffy said to her. "Can you get a magical bead on it?"

"I can try," Willow said, "but it's difficult. It's made to be hard to detect by magical means."

"Well, keep trying," Buffy said. "And Giles, you keep in touch with your sources in Japan. If Wesley shows up back in Oxford -- "

"It will be hard to keep the Council from knowing," Elisabeth said dryly. "Robson has told us he is staying in Oxford indefinitely."

"Let's hope Wesley makes a move toward us first, then. And that he's not planning some kind of double-cross. I think," Buffy said grimly, "I'd better stay in Oxford too." She sighed. "I hate not having the ball in my court. If anybody picks up anything from either Wesley or Faith, call me immediately. Brian?"

Brian lifted his head from his hand and looked at them all, his gaze resting finally on Buffy.

"If Wesley contacts you -- " her voice was gentle -- "will you call me?"

Brian cleared his throat softly. "Yes," he said. Elisabeth sighed and cast her eyes down; but instead of looking at her Brian looked at Rupert. For a moment their eyes met with calm understanding. Then Brian put the cat gently off his lap and rose to his feet.

"If that's all for now," he said, "I think I'm going to go home."

He didn't wait for any arguments, but left the kitchen and went upstairs to retrieve his duffel. It took him a few minutes to get it repacked; his movements were slow, and it was hard to believe that just this morning he had never been to another dimension.

When he came down to the foyer to put on his jacket, Elisabeth was waiting for him. "Are you sure you want to go home tonight?" she said. She was definitely fussing, he thought, but the note of I-know-better-than-you had gone out of her voice, and he answered her without umbrage.

"Yeah, I'm sure," he said.

He was at the door, and she was in the doorway with him. "Brian," she said in a low voice, "you shouldn't be alone."

"Yes, I should," he said easily. "The only thing left on today's agenda is Whitaker blubbing into his tea, and nobody wants to see that."

She smiled painfully. "You're right," she said, "nobody likes a sissified lump of misery at the tea table. You're such a wimp."

He smiled back at her, and though she put her hand on his arm, she did not grasp him, and let him go on out the door. "Text me," she said.

He nodded and waved. "Yeah."

He drove home, trying to keep alert for anyone following him, but he felt no danger at the edges of his senses, and he arrived at his flat without mishap. The flat, he thought, had the same subtle difference to it that he had noticed putting on the amulet, and though it was a shambles from his hasty packing and neglected housework, he knew it to be safe.

Brian didn't blub into his tea; nor did he even make any to blub into. He took off his clothes, crawled into his unmade bed, and fell at once into oblivion.

*

When Wesley woke, the daylight was far advanced. He turned over and sat up on the bed; he appeared to have slept without moving since he fell onto it hours ago. The silence in the guest house was almost preternatural; at a far distance Wesley could hear the fall of water, but no human voices, no motors. He got up, aching in every fiber, and padded out barefoot to explore; but he got no farther than the guest-house bathroom.

A delicious abundance of hot water later, Wesley came out dressed in a pair of loose grey cotton trousers and a heavy black pullover that had been left for him. He found a corridor and followed a sound of movement to a doorway. In the room, Faith was sitting cross-legged at a low table, eating rice from a bowl with a pair of chopsticks as if she had grown up knowing how. _It's a good thing Slayers tend to be naturally resourceful people_, Giles had said; watching Faith pick up the last grains of rice with incisive movements of her chopsticks, Wesley was roused to admiration and a little envy.

Across from her sat a tray with covered bowls, and as soon as he registered this, Faith said without looking up, "You better eat yours before I -- " She glanced up. "Oh, thank God. You shaved it off."

Wesley rolled his eyes. "The goatee was not popular. The point is abundantly well taken, thank you." He entered the room and took his place at the table.

"You're welcome. I was about to say, you arrived just in time -- I was going to eat your lunch if you didn't."

Wesley uncovered his dishes: rice, clear soup, vegetables, a pot of scalding-hot tea. "Did you sleep well?" he asked Faith, picking up his ceramic spoon.

"Like a log," Faith said, putting down her bowl and chopsticks with a clatter and rising to her feet. "Have a good lunch. See you." And she was gone before Wesley could take so much as his first sip of soup.

Wesley thought he knew what that was about, and if he was right, it would keep till he had eaten. He finished his soup, then picked up his chopsticks and ate his vegetables and rice, with considerably less dexterity than Faith had used. He tried to imitate her skill at getting at the rice in the bottom of the bowl, but gave up after a few minutes and quaffed his tea.

He reached the bottom of his tea and held the warm cup in his hands, thinking what to do next; and then he noticed that a man had entered the room: unless he missed his guess, the older man who had directed their reception into the monastery the night before. "I am interrupting you," he said, in a quiet, precise English.

"Not at all," Wesley said, "I had just finished." He rose to his feet and offered the monk an inclination of the head. "I must thank you for taking us in and caring for us."

The monk gave him a nod in turn. "My name is Naoki Inouye," he said.

"And I am Wesley Wyndam-Pryce," he answered, realizing with sudden embarrassment how egregiously Western his name was and wishing he had something to offer that was less tedious to pronounce. But Inouye Naoki appeared not to be distressed.

"Ichiro-san tells me that you come from an ancient tradition, that you are of a family that keeps guard over secret things."

"Yes," Wesley said.

"There is need for such guards in every land," Naoki said, confirming some of Wesley's thoughts.

"I regret," Wesley said, "that some of my kind have been making trouble here."

Their eyes met, and Wesley knew they were both thinking of Satsuki Morimoto. "You have tried to make amends," Naoki said. It was not a question, and in the next moment his gesture of invitation held an equal measure of polite intent. "If I may," he said, "I will show you the house."

Wesley allowed himself to be conducted out into the compound. Naoki indicated each building and its purpose, acknowledging the silent greetings of monks who appeared and went their way. They passed along a paled walkway hung with fluttering banners, and Wesley found himself absorbing the silence between their words -- a silence pregnant neither with danger nor safety, but with a sort of incipient knowledge-by-acquaintance, of what he did not know. "Turns out I like Japan," Faith had said, and Wesley thought for the first time that he did too.

At the end of the walkway lay a smaller compound, hidden in the lee of a high wooded hill. Naoki ushered Wesley to the largest of the buildings and let him go inside first, without announcing the building's purpose.

The building's interior was taken up almost completely by a large room. Slowly Wesley moved to the center of the room and stood looking at the mats, the mirrors, the pads and simply-designed cabinets which, he felt certain, held dummy weapons.

"It's a dojo," he said quietly. He turned to look at Naoki, who neither answered nor flinched away from his gaze.

There was a long silence, then Naoki said: "This morning a Western man came to our gate. He was looking for you and your warrior. We told him we knew nothing of you and sent him away. But he may not be the only one who comes."

"Very likely not," Wesley sighed. "I am sorry."

Naoki waved away his apology. "You shall stay in this place as long as you wish." He paused and then added, "We have need of a warrior here."

And he and Faith had failed to help their own Slayer. Grief took hold of Wesley's throat.

Naoki was looking at him with quiet knowledge. "It hurt you," he said, "to go into the forest."

Wesley didn't want to talk about it. "It doesn't matter," he said, looking away at the training room. It looked like the perfect place. Faith would appreciate it, if she hadn't seen it already.

"To what you must do, perhaps not," Naoki said. "But you should know that not many who go deep into that forest come out again. Your -- She has been very concerned for you."

Wesley turned to frown at him. Faith, concerned?

A faint hint of humor touched Naoki's lips. "I do not think she would like you to be told. And perhaps it is of no significance. But she spent most of the night sitting in your doorway while you slept. Toward morning she went to her own bed and allowed us to look after you. I think she expects -- " He stopped.

More disaster, Wesley thought. Or for me to dissolve into the ether at daybreak.

After a long silence, Wesley said: "If I can convince her to agree, could she stay here?"

Naoki bowed. "It would be my honor," he said.

*

Brian woke the next morning to silence and and a feeling so black he wondered if somehow he had been physically fastened to his bed. He had always regarded descriptions of depression with sympathetic incomprehension, but now, looking across at the mess of his flat, the mere thought of getting up to do anything weighted him down like boredom to the pitch of anguish.

It's dimensional travel, he told himself. Elisabeth had said it was not only dangerous but exhausting. But exhaustion wasn't the word for this.

If he didn't get out of bed now, he was never going to get out. Brian forced himself into a sitting position -- God, _what_ was that pain in his breastbone? -- and dragged his feet out and onto the floor.

He got himself up and into the shower, and after cogitating for a long time under the hot spray, he realized that it was Sunday. Fortunately, he was not late for anything. Unfortunately, there was nowhere in particular that he had to be. He couldn't stand the thought of spending the entire day in his flat, even if it was safe: by the time he finished his shower he had struggled through the recollection of a Baroque concert in Corpus Christi chapel and the decision to go to it.

There was a text from Elisabeth on his mobile. He answered it to say that he was all right and would see her in college tomorrow. He spent the next hour lingering over a cup of coffee, thinking of all the work ahead of him, of the Colloquium (there were probably a dozen new emails in his inbox right now on the subject of the Colloquium alone) and Michaelmas term and all the terms after that. None of it seemed to matter.

After several geological ages in which he did nothing but stare at the general wreckage of his living quarters, Brian tucked the amulet around his neck and under his collar, shrugged into his jacket, and set off at a heavy walk to go to the concert.

He chose a seat towards the back, and fortunately for him no one hailed him, so he didn't have to attempt to be gregarious. He fixed his eyes front and sat waiting with his hands in his lap for the music to start.

The chamber orchestra and the four-part voice ensemble were one he had heard before, and had even considered trying out for when he was an undergraduate and still toying with the decision of what sort of Oxford career he wanted. He had considered it at least as seriously as he had once considered theatre: he had a decent tenor voice, and Elisabeth had always said that music was the closest thing Brian had to a religion. But in the end, out of all the careers that dazzled him, the allure of history had drawn him in, with its implication that no one lived to himself alone; that, and Dean Blakely's dry observation that either Brian would become a don or end up the most notorious scapegrace who had ever passed through Magdalen College, and that was saying something.

_The most notorious scapegrace_. It was Brian's love for Oxford that had seen him into independent adulthood; and his love for Elisabeth that had brought him in contact with the heroism that teaching history could not supply. _Build thee more stately mansions, oh my soul_ \-- but now he felt racked and ruined; undone; unraveled.

The music began. Brian had merely chosen the concert as something to do with himself for a certain amount of time; but as the fugue passed through his consciousness it settled and knit his thoughts together, not so as to dispel his grief, or even to make sense of it, but to make him believe again that it could be made sense of. _The love that moves the sun and the other stars_. "Even in a hell dimension," Brian murmured, and closed his eyes.

He kept them closed through the rest of the concert, and when at last the musicians had taken their last bow and the audience was getting up, their voices rising in echoing cacophony, he opened them and took out his handkerchief to wipe gently at his face. As he was refolding the handkerchief to return to his pocket, someone edged along his pew toward the aisle, and Brian moved his knees to let them pass. Instead the person sat down next to him, and he looked up, half-ready to be annoyed.

"Hallo," Anne Langland said.

Brian relaxed. "Oh, hallo. Come to enjoy the music?"

"Yes. It was very restorative," she said, and he looked at her. She was still wearing her collar, but had put on a rather shapeless cardigan that had only comfort to recommend it, and her eyes were tired.

"Rough work day?" he said, smiling a little.

"You don't want to hear about my week."

"Maybe I do," he said. "I could stand a go of someone else's troubles."

She looked at him with wry sympathy, and he waited for her to put his question aside neatly; but she didn't. She sighed and said: "Two parishioners died of illness this week. I did both funerals; there was a family row at one of them and I put my liturgical foot in it at the other, and the family in question has a lot of money and influence, so I was promised at the church door this morning that it would come up at the next meeting of the vestry. Has your week been worse than that?"

He shrugged. "I stormed out of an unpleasant meeting at Pyke's Lea, got attacked by rogue Watchers in Magdalen quad, crossed over to another dimension to save my lover only to guarantee he'll never see his old friends and loved ones again, pissed off the god-king that killed the girl he loved and nearly fell a thousand feet to my death, and participated in a plan to hold him for questioning if he ever turns up alive. So best-case scenario at this point is that he comes out of hiding and isn't in league with one kind of evil or another. But I'm past hoping he'll want to have anything to do with me again."

Anne turned this over with her mouth tugged to one side. "Hm. Your week may indeed have been worse than mine."

"Not by much," Brian said. "At least there weren't any funerals." He reached out and knocked briefly on the hard wood of the pew before him. "Shall I walk you home?"

She smiled, the same dry tired smile he felt on his own face. "All right."

They took their time on the return trip to St. John's vicarage, not saying much. It had been a year and several lifetimes since he had met Anne over Elisabeth's hospital bed, and the foxhole friendship they had forged then had matured into an occasional companionship, detached in the manner of academics and clergy, and not dependent on Elisabeth's presence for its value. Once, taking lunch together at the pub, they had been mistaken by one of Brian's colleagues for brother and sister, which had startled them; Anne's hair was a blonder sand than Brian's, her eyes a clearer grey, and they were both used to the solitary spotlight of only children. But in the holocaust of that spring Brian had trusted her; and though she was a hard person to get to know, Brian sensed that she trusted him. And perhaps that was what having a sibling was like.

When they reached her doorstep, Brian said, "Remember when I showed up here completely berserk in the middle of the night?"

She turned to him a deprecating smile, but didn't look surprised, and Brian suspected her thoughts had run in a parallel vein. "In the Viking sense of the term," she said. "Yes, I remember. Things looked rather bleak then, didn't they."

He said, "Are you telling me that everything's going to turn out all right?"

She was looking steadily up at him. "Not necessarily. But I expect we could both do with the sense of perspective."

"The historical point of view," Brian said. "_Plus c'est la même chose, plus ça change_. Or something like that."

Anne snorted, and Brian gave a sudden laugh.

"Thanks for the walk home," she said.

"I was just going to say the same to you." He grinned at her, a tired grin but an unforced one. "Take good care."

"And you," Anne said. "I'll see you at the Colloquium if not before."

Brian lifted his eyes to heaven. "I'll be there."

He saw her through the door, waved, and then walked home in the vesper light. Nothing had changed: but he could breathe under the weight of his own shoulders once more.

*

Wesley went looking for Faith after Inouye Naoki left him. She was not in the courtyard or the garden; so he went back into the guest-house and checked her room. She was there, framed by the light of the window, her stance irresolute, as if she were about to bolt. He knocked quietly on the doorframe and waited for her to glance over her shoulder.

"I've been speaking with Naoki-san," he said without preamble. "He tells me that a Westerner came to the gate this morning, looking for us. He was sent away without any information; but it seems clear that the Watchers are on our trail." She made no response, but it seemed to Wesley she was listening. The silence here is too great, he thought suddenly. Of course Faith would want to run. He had to proceed carefully. "Naoki-san has offered us sanctuary for as long as we need it," he said. "And I have observed that though this is a small monastery, its wards are very good. I'm inclined to accept his offer. But of course that depends on what you think."

Her gaze was fixed in the distance halfway over her shoulder; after a moment, she shrugged. "Here's as good as anywhere to be put on ice for a while." Again he sensed the restraint of her self-command: here no sudden violent movements, no bashing a wall or breaking a window. It must cost her, he thought, just as she turned her head fully to look at him. "But don't you have somewhere you want to be?"

He must be careful. "It can wait," he said. "I'm with you until I'm no longer needed."

She looked away again. Wesley braced himself for her to try to drive him off with a cutting remark, or to turn and push past him to leave. But she did neither. She took several breaths and then said quietly, "I wouldn't have made it out of the forest without you."

"Nor I without you," he said, just as quietly, and when she made an impatient movement, he added, "You went in half-cocked after Satsuki Morimoto; I went in half-cocked after you. We were fortunate to find one another. I am sorry we didn't find her in time." Faith turned away from him. "More than I can say," he finished.

There was a long silence, and then Faith said almost inaudibly, "I failed her."

He hesitated. "It's right to grieve for her," he said finally. "But the failure...is only failure. That's all."

He could say that now. She turned back to him with a frown that was almost a glare; Wesley waited, remembering that she owed him a punch in the face. But again she surprised him: she gave a wordless shrug, both accepting and leaving his words, and moved slowly to drop to her seat on the edge of the low Western bed. Feet planted, hands between her knees, she stared into the middle distance and said, with an attempt at lightness, "I guess I don't make a very good Watcher."

"Watchers don't necessarily make good Watchers," Wesley said. "So I think you're off that particular hook."

He had meant to make her smile; but she shuddered. "I killed that guy," she said.

So he had been right: she did still feel the weight of it. He could say, _Maybe not; you don't know he didn't survive_. He could say, _He would have killed you_.

He said, "Yes."

She shuddered again, harder. "The Scythe wasn't made for killing people," she said. "But maybe I was. I've done something terrible to it. I can't hold it. It's not right."

Her voice went raw, and she stopped. Wesley looked round and saw the Scythe lying against the wall out of Faith's sight line. Quickly, but without sudden movements, he picked it up and took it to her; knelt and put it on her lap; closed her resisting hand over the haft. "You can't put it away," he said. "It's yours. You have to own it."

She was shaking her head. "It's still yours," he insisted.

She screwed up her face, fighting it back. It was easier for Faith to destroy something than to weep, and he couldn't help her with this. He waited at her feet, watching her struggle. Finally a sob escaped her; only one, but it came from the depths: of months alone as a foreigner, of frustrated love and responsibility, of horror at the inward darkness that never stopped rising to the surface. She bent her head and wept silently after that; Wesley felt an unaccountable relief when he saw one of her tears hit the slope of the blade and break into smaller drops.

Presently she lifted her head and dashed the tears away with the side of her hand, with a punishing gesture. "Don't do that," Wesley said, irritated. "Some people might envy you those tears, you know."

She sniffed and gave out a puff of a laugh, shaking her head.

There was a small silence in which they both took in the fact of him on his knees before her, with both their hands on the Scythe in her lap. She looked up, and for a fleeting moment before her gaze flicked away, their eyes touched. And here was another thing he had irretrievably lost: his ability to pretend not to care -- about this, about her, about the secrets of his heritage which were also the secrets of the heart.

Faith looked down again at the Scythe, and with one finger wiped thoughtfully at the drop on the blade. "Will you do something for me?" she said.

Anything. Wesley didn't even have to say it.

"Will you take it to Buffy for me?" Forestalling his protest, she added, "Not because of the whole guilt thing. Because...because it has work to do, out there in the world. And I -- " She stopped.

"And the work you have to do," he finished for her, "it can't help you with," and she nodded.

"I thought I was finished with this," she said, staring angrily away at the window. "I was finished. And now it's like I have to start all over again."

Wesley half-laughed in recognition. "My lines and life are free, free as the road, loose as the wind, as large as store...Only not so much," he said, ruefully.

She was looking at him with a quizzical half-smirk. "Yeah, whatever," she said. And then, "Will you?"

"Yes," Wesley said. "When?"

"Well, if Buffy's fighting the rogue Watchers," Faith said, "she'll probably need it ASAP."

Wesley agreed. "Then I'll go as soon as we can arrange to smuggle me past the watchful eyes of -- "

"The watchful eyes of Watchers?"

He snorted. "Yes." Then: "You've seen the dojo?"

She cast her eyes down. "Yeah."

"Naoki-san says this country could use a Slayer."

Faith sighed. "Guess they'll have to make do with me."

"And that it would be his honor to have you here."

She gave him a grim, exasperated look. "Wes -- "

"Do I make a habit of lying to you to spare your feelings?"

"No," she said reluctantly.

"Well then," he said. "You can't replace Satsuki Morimoto. But you can be yourself for this job, and that's more than adequate."

For answer, Faith lifted the Scythe and pressed it into his hands: _Out of your own mouth_, she might have said. He accepted the Scythe and the silent retort, and rose slowly, as if she had just knighted him. Their eyes met again.

"Thank you," he said, and did not add, _For everything_.

*

The call Brian had half been expecting came with a week to go before Elisabeth's presentation.

"Brian," Elisabeth said, "I don't like to bother you. But...."

He heard the incipient tears in her voice. "Yes? What's up?"

She said in half a wail, "I have nothing to wear."

Ah. "I'll be right over," he said.

Half an hour later he was at Pyke's Lea, observing as Elisabeth showed him her profile wearing the black skirt, white maternity oxford shirt, and gown. The shirt's front tails flapped awkwardly over the front of the skirt, the elastic of which was visible in a cringeworthy stretch through the white fabric. "I would have consulted Buffy," she said miserably, "but she's been preoccupied and working all morning, and Rupert's on the phone to Japan."

"Yeah, you shouldn't wear that," Brian said.

"But you don't understand," she wailed, "there _is_ nothing else. This is the only thing that goes with my gown, and it entirely justifies Stillman's ridiculous email."

"I wouldn't go that far," Brian said. "What about that empress dress that Willow brought you?"

"It's _red_," Elisabeth said, as if doubting his wits.

"Yes, I know. Try it on, I want to see it."

"But -- "

"Just go try it on. As an experiment."

Accordingly Elisabeth came back into her office wearing the empress dress a few minutes later: it was a rich medieval red, and had slightly scooped sleeves and a square neck. "Now the gown," Brian said, and Elisabeth, with an exasperated sigh, put the gown on over it.

"What do you mean, you don't have anything to wear?" Brian said. "That will work fine."

She glared at him. "This," she said with a sweeping gesture, "is the opposite of subfusc."

"Elisabeth," Brian said seriously, "I think it's time you embraced your role at Magdalen as the resident American Eccentric. Nobody else in the whole college could get away with wearing that. But you can."

"I don't want to -- "

"Are you hearing me?" Brian said. "Do you want to try and fail at being subfusc, or do you want to look majestic?"

He wasn't trying to flatter her. She did look wonderfully imperial, and the effect would be even better when she'd put her hair up. Now, she pushed up her glasses on her nose and fixed him with a thoughtful glare. "I want to look like a professional," she said.

"You'll look like you belong on that dais," he said.

She still looked discontented, but he knew it would take a while for her to work her way down from her high pitch of anxiety. "Thanks," she said grudgingly after a moment. "For dragging yourself out here to deal with my freakout."

"I don't mind," he said, smiling. And added, "I like having things to keep me busy."

She tried to smile at him then, but it came out a sympathetic grimace. "Oh, Brian."

"Has any news come through?" he asked, without looking at her.

"Nothing conclusive," she said reluctantly.

"And nothing good," was his conclusion.

She sighed. "The authorities have found some dead Watchers in a forest in a national park. Rupert says the odds are that they were with the rogues. There's no details on how they died, but...it wasn't from natural causes. Rupert's source expects to have more details soon, like their names and time of death."

"Still no sign of Faith or Wesley?"

"No sign of them." She came close to where he sat on the stepstool by the bookshelves, and he let her put a hand on his shoulder. "The more information, the better," she said. "Right?"

He nodded.

"You're right though, that hoping for the best is not a great time-filler."

Brian looked up at her then. "And what is the best, to your mind?"

She took a deep breath. "I want to see them safe. And I want to see Wesley exonerated."

Brian had been aware for a while that Elisabeth was always carefully neutral about Wesley. "You don't like him," he said now.

She didn't stop meeting his eye, but she began to look uncomfortable. "That's not true," she said. "I like Wesley very much."

"But?"

She sighed and shut her eyes briefly. "It's not so much a 'but' as a 'but I'm worried,'" she said. "Wesley can be ruthless when he thinks it's necessary. And he's suffered a great deal, enough to threaten his sanity -- and I can only imagine what he's been through this past year." Brian knew she was thinking of Illyria. "I'm afraid of what to expect with him."

"You don't think I should be with him?" Brian said.

"I know how you feel about him," she told him, sympathy and worry tangling in her expression. "But I haven't had a chance to see how he feels about you. And if you're looking for challenge in a lover....I'm a little afraid of what this might drag you into. Not that I don't think you can -- " she backpedaled quickly at his look -- "I mean, just try to imagine it from my point of -- "

"Elisabeth," Brian said, "I don't have to imagine it."

A rueful smile touched her lips. "_Touché_. I deserved that, didn't I."

"Well -- "

"I could have had more patience with you."

"And I could have had more sympathy for you," Brian said. "But I didn't."

For answer Elisabeth patted his shoulder lightly.

"No uncleared accounts?" Brian said, searching to meet her eyes.

"No uncleared accounts," she agreed. Then she shifted suddenly. "Oh. He's moving again," she said, putting a hand to her belly. "Here -- right here -- " She reached for his hand.

"Oh," he complained, "you always put my hand on the place where he's moving, and he always stops just when I -- " Brian broke off, and was silent for a long minute. When he spoke again his voice was husky. "All right," he said, "Uncle Brian is happy now."

"So you think I should wear this," Elisabeth said.

"Definitely," he said, and added now, "It's beyond hot, really."

Elisabeth snorted.

When Brian took his leave and went downstairs, he decided on impulse to look in and see whether Buffy or Rupert had any fresh news. He detoured for the study and pushed open the door -- and stopped.

In the study Rupert stood with his arms around Buffy, who was sobbing quietly into his chest. He had one hand cupped over her bright hair, as if she were his child; but his stance was not protective -- it couldn't be, Brian thought; like all the others he was a knight baulked of his skills. His eyes were closed: as Brian stood unmoving, he opened them and held Brian's gaze for a moment.

It never occurred to Brian to think this might be a scene following bad news. He knew unerringly that this had something to do with the Soulan Waer, as surely as he knew he would never be fully able to interpret it. He gave Rupert a quiet nod, and withdrew.

He sat for a moment in his car before reaching for the ignition, thinking of the dimensions, literal and figurative, that had stretched the boundaries of his life past recognition.

"Love contents all wills," he murmured at last to himself, and went home.

*

It was time for Wesley to leave. He had packed his satchel with a change of clothing and slung the Scythe across his shoulder in its cloth case, hidden under the long skirt of his coat. A young man who drove a retired hearse had been engaged to take some produce to Osaka by way of cover to smuggle Wesley out of the monastery. Wesley enjoyed the thought of making his escape in a hearse.

Now all that remained was to say goodbye to Faith. She came to meet him, half-reluctant, in the corridor of the guest-house.

"I'll contact you once I've handed it off," he said. "The travel won't take longer than twenty days, I hope."

"I'll be here," Faith said.

"This is a good place." He went ahead and said it. "I'm glad you're staying here."

She cocked one shoulder. "I'll be all right."

"I know." He gave the guest-house a level glance. "I wouldn't mind coming back, for a visit."

"Yeah," Faith said with a grin, "and maybe I'll come visit you in Oxford. And steal your boyfriend."

"Well, you can try," Wesley said comfortably. Then thought, If I still have one, by now.

Faith read his expression and said, "You'll make it there. You've got the skills." It was an unadulterated smile on her face as she added, "You've got more brilliant and ruthless plans in your head than anyone I know. But you still look like a little boy when you sleep."

Wesley felt his face warming. "Lord help me. I'm a complete sucker for flattery."

"No, you're not," Faith laughed. "You couldn't take a compliment if it slapped you in the face."

"Well, maybe if it slapped me in the face," Wesley said.

"You really did find your sense of humor, didn't you?"

"And I didn't even know it was lost."

They grinned at each other. Then Faith said uneasily, "I think this is the moment where Buffy and Giles would hug."

Wesley made a face of distaste. "Yes. I believe you're right."

"But we're not going to do that."

"No, of course not," Wesley said. Then added, "Unless you want to."

"Are you kidding me?" Faith said. But she made no move to step back or wave him away, and as he stood looking at her he caught a glimpse of something furtive and wistful in her glance. Awkwardly, with many hesitations, they stepped toward each other and by degrees drew one another in, her arms around his waist and his round her shoulders. Neither of them was good at hugging, Wesley thought, and almost laughed. He relaxed, holding her; and suddenly she was hugging him fiercely, her arms growing tight around his ribs. "Gently!" He brought it out in a squeak, and she pulled away.

"Don't know my own strength," she said, and he retorted, "The hell you don't. You -- "

"Would you get outta here already?" she said, laughing.

He turned then and walked away smiling, lifting his hand for farewell without looking back.

"And don't get killed again," she yelled after him. "Or I'll kick your ass!"

*

Brian moved with a distrait confidence among the milling gowns to his seat in the front row, pausing to accept congratulations from his colleague in Merton on the success of the Colloquium. "D'you think they'll ask you to chair the Fieldstone committee again next year?"

_God help me, I hope not. I need at least a year to recover_. "All depends," Brian said, "on what the theme is next year. History and Legend in England is right up my street."

"It's up a number of streets," his friend observed, looking round the auditorium at the audience finding their seats. "You've had a very impressive attendance."

_Yes, well_, Brian thought, _there have been a few extra attendees not necessarily attracted by dialogue on history and legend in England_. Rupert was about somewhere, though at the moment he didn't see him, and Robson, well camouflaged in his own gown (he was Brasenose, as he'd gravely informed Brian some days ago), had staked out a spot in the upper deck of seating where he could see the entire audience.

Brian saw the sense in keeping close to everything that was happening in their world, but he couldn't help resenting Robson for doing it; Elisabeth said she hadn't told Robson that she'd invited Wesley to her presentation at the Colloquium, but it didn't seem to matter -- Robson was sticking to them like glue. If Wesley kept the invitation, which increasingly seemed unlikely, as days had passed without any news of him, Robson wouldn't fail to know of it.

However, his Merton colleague was not wrong about the attendance; it was highly gratifying to see historians from all over come to participate and attend the panels; and not just historians but interested parties from other disciplines as well. He caught sight of Anne in her collar taking an unobtrusive seat in a middle row and gave her a brief smile. A few rows behind Anne, Buffy was sitting dead center: she and Rupert had divided the reconnaissance between them, and her gaze was watchful.

Presently the panel of presenters came onto the platform and took their seats, and the audience quieted and found their seats. Brian's attention was drawn in completely: this was the last slate of presenters for the Colloquium, and Elisabeth's presentation was the last one. To his relief she looked comfortable in her chair before the audience; she had reconciled herself to wearing red under her gown, and her gaze on the introductory speaker was alert and calm. At his cue, he rose and thanked everyone on behalf of the committee for their attendance and lively participation, then resumed his seat and awaited events.

It was Elisabeth's turn to present. She rose and went with a slow grace to the lectern, and began. To Brian, who had read the paper through its many revisions and practically knew every word by heart, the information that absorbed his interest was peripheral: Elisabeth's tones and inflections, the subtle reactions of the other presenters and the audience behind him, the function of the microphone and audio system.

Fortunately, it was all going well, though Brian did not dare quite to relax. As Elisabeth warmed up, she began glancing levelly across the audience; at one point a bright smile crossed her face, and Brian thought that she must have found Rupert, come back from reconnoitering. She proceeded with increasing triumph: and when at last she brought her paper to its ringing conclusion, Brian could not have been more pleased by the applause if it had been for him.

The company broke up and began to make its way out of the auditorium to seek refreshments in the reception hall; Brian was collared by the chair of the morning's panel and allowed himself to be subjected to an immediate postmortem. He saw Elisabeth give him a quick, happy wave and scuttle off, presumably to find a restroom.

Brian began to nudge himself along the human current toward the reception hall, accepting congratulations and addressing himself to remaining minutiae, and when he finally arrived in the entryway, he saw that many had already acquired cups and snack plates and were talking in loud knots around the room. He searched for Elisabeth's red dress, and found her at last, sipping at a cup of punch and talking to Dean Blakely. As he watched, another man approached them, a man not in academic dress but a long leather frock coat.

Wesley.

Before he knew what he was doing, Brian ducked back out of the entryway and hurried at a reeling pace to a place out of the way, past the catering team and round a corner, where he braced a wrist against the wall and leaned his forehead against it, waiting through the dizziness that thundered through his senses. Joy to the pitch of rage swept through and for a moment carried him away completely.

That _bastard_, was the first thought that found its way edgewise through the hammering pulses of his brain. Coming in here bold as brass! In that bloody leather coat! And then, with a pang he recognized as fear, _Now what_?

Brian stood up and yanked the fronts of his gown straight, then went back at a deliberate long stride into the reception hall.

They were still there. Wesley was talking animatedly to Elisabeth, and though he was not in the least dressed for the occasion, he carried an air of such utter comfort in his surroundings that Dean Blakely at least seemed to accept his presence without a qualm. The tumult of rage renewed itself in Brian's pulses, but he was no longer dizzy, and he went straight for them, in time to hear Wesley say:

"It's been so long since I've read Macdonald, but I was intrigued by what you say about contiguous experience in fairy tale. Mind you, the appearance of concentricity in the _Commedia_ \-- " he stopped when he saw Brian, and the light in his face quickened for a moment before it was submerged in decorum.

"Pryce," Brian said, with a miracle of coolness.

Dean Blakely was smiling. "Mr. Whitaker, the man of the hour. I take it you've met Mr. Wyndam-Pryce; Elisabeth was just introducing us. We've been congratulating Elisabeth on her very elegant paper."

"And ensuring I'll have plenty of work to do for next year," Elisabeth said. "If Wesley's ideas are any indication. What was your area of study?" she asked him.

"Philology," Wesley said.

She fixed him with a beaming smile that in any other circumstance would have delighted Brian. "Of course. I should have guessed."

"A philologist. Good heavens," Dean Blakely said, "a dying breed. What college are you?"

Wesley cleared his throat delicately. "Caius."

Brian went still as marble, but, "Caius, but of course," Dean Blakely said. "You would have studied under Matthew Dobler-Peters, then, I hope, before his retirement?"

"Yes, I was very fortunate," Wesley said. "I learned much that was invaluable under him."

"Do you know," Elisabeth said eagerly, "I've heard that Caius has a remarkable collection of -- "

Beyond Wesley Brian saw Buffy signal him with a raised eyebrow. "Excuse me just a moment," he said, and went to her.

When he reached Buffy he said quietly through his teeth, "I'm going to kill him."

"Well, if you want the pleasure," Buffy said dryly, "you'd better stick close. I need to find Giles. I just saw Robson on his cell phone in the hallway. I think the shit's about to hit the fan."

*

When Wesley landed in England it was with a mixed sense of weary accomplishment and worry. _High and mighty, you shall know I am set naked on your kingdom_ \-- but he had no one to tell that he had arrived.

He had, despite the extra expenditure of time, taken a roundabout way back to Britain: a freight ship to Anchorage, then trains, mostly, across Canada, before taking ship again. He had resisted the impulse to contact anyone who might know Buffy's movements, deciding instead to make straight for Oxford. There were risks in that plan, but there were equal risks in attempting to find Buffy in Rome, and he knew the ground in Oxford as he did not in Rome: Pyke's Lea had wards, and if they chose not to take him under their protection he knew they would at least be able to protect the Scythe.

It wasn't, however, till he reached Southampton that he remembered Elisabeth Bowen and her presentation. It was the middle of the night, and too late to seek accommodations, so he had bought a newspaper and settled down with it on a bench outside the railway station, casting the glamour over himself that was now routine. Something about the date on the paper joggled his memory; and he came up with it at last. "September fifteenth," Elisabeth had said. At three o'clock in Magdalen.

At first he thought that of course he would not be going to the presentation now. But at that moment, he saw two men pass him by, not police, with searching gaze. He kept still, and the eyes of one passed over him without recognition. Of course, he thought. The Council would naturally be keeping an eye on the ports, and unless he was careful, they'd be making sweeps with mages who could detect the magical activity of his glamour. They would be on his trail soon enough.

If he went to the presentation, he would be meeting Elisabeth and Giles, and Brian, in public, in broad daylight where the Council would have to make an unpleasant scene to retrieve him. An unpleasant scene at a seat of higher learning was definitely something that would stick in the Council's throat. A move that bold might actually be his safest bet.

The next day, therefore, found him deposited at Oxford station under a blowsy sky that was clearing off from the night's rain. He had dodged around London a little in case he'd been tracked from Southampton, and so had no time to clean himself up; he had washed as best he could in the train lavatory. It would have to do. He looked at his watch: it was a quarter of three. With all his senses alive to possible surveillance, he started up the High to Magdalen College.

It cost him a few minutes to determine that the Fieldstone Colloquium's last events were being held in the auditorium, and with the help of his glamour passed through the checkpoints that might have delayed him. By the time he entered the door of the auditorium, Elisabeth was already at the lectern speaking.

"Though Macdonald makes use of the poignant joyful turn at several points in the narrative," she was saying, "the resurrection of Anodos differs from Tolkien's eucatastrophe in two key ways." The door fell shut behind Wesley; Elisabeth saw past his silhouette to his face: and she grinned briefly. A good sign. He grinned back, and she continued.

"First," she said, "Anodos's resurrection is not part of a grander scheme of redemption. His heroism in the battle is his contribution to the wider redemption of the faerie community, but his resurrection appears to be more for his own benefit: unlike his song to free the lady, it does not unlock a secret or cure an evil by itself, and remains an interior event, like the meta-landscape of the fairytale itself.

"Second, and relatedly, the experience of resurrection for Anodos is simply what happens next -- it is a contiguous, not concentric, narrative that has shaped the plot throughout. Though Macdonald asserts elsewhere that growth is 'upwards toward the center,' he tacitly acknowledges that such trajectories as might be found in the Divine Comedy are not the province of fairytale. 'Anodos' means 'pathless,' and Anodos must construct a path from the materials of his own life and consciousness, whatever those might be, and wherever they might take him."

Wesley remembered, after a moment marveling at Elisabeth's grasp of his own situation, that she too had been resurrected after a fashion. Meta-landscape, indeed, he thought. He stayed where he was and listened with pleasure to the rest of her paper, forgetting for a moment that he had come on a mission, forgetting that he was still in danger even now.

The first sign of danger did not appear till after he had greeted Elisabeth in the reception hall. "I'm so pleased you could come," she said to him, with every appearance of sincerity, and introduced him at once to Dr. Blakely, the Dean. They embarked on a conversation which on Dean Blakely's side must be purely academic, but to him and Elisabeth had a valence of immediacy; but the immediacy was immediately put to flight by Brian's appearance.

Wesley had seen him in the front row, leaning forward as if to guide Elisabeth to the final conclusion of her paper, and then in the general exodus lost sight of him again. And then all at once he was standing right there. Wesley fought to keep his composure, but it was too much to expect the train of his thought to return.

And there was something wrong. Unlike Elisabeth, Brian did not smile at him in greeting. There was something tired and grim about his demeanor that Wesley found chilling; and almost at once Brian took leave of them and disappeared again.

Elisabeth was asking him about the collections at Caius. Wesley left off trying to catch sight of Brian over his shoulder and tore his attention back to the conversation. "Yes," he told her, "and if you're interested, I could arrange for you to have a view of them. Some very interesting manuscripts there."

Dean Blakely genially excused himself from their company, and went in search of coffee.

"Elisabeth," Wesley said, "what is going -- "

And then he saw quite clearly what was going on, for Dean Blakely's place had been taken by Michael Robson. Elisabeth's expression became as grim as Brian's, and she glanced uneasily from one to the other.

"You," Wesley said, in a low hard voice. "What do you want?"

"A little private conversation," Robson said calmly.

"I'm not going anywhere with you," Wesley said.

"Oh, I think you will." Robson's eyes were unyielding. He was wearing his gown, and looked like he belonged perfectly in his surroundings. How many more Watchers were here? He looked with sudden scrutiny at Elisabeth. She, however, was looking at Robson, like a terrier guarding a pup.

"Michael," she said, "wherever Wesley is going, one of us goes too, as you know perfectly well."

Wesley rounded on his cousin. "You've turned them against me, haven't you?" he hissed.

"No, Wesley," she said, but Wesley kept his eyes locked on Robson's.

"I don't know what your game is, but if you stand between me and -- "

And then Brian was there again, between them: his face close to Wesley's, he gave a slow shake of the head, his eyes wide with grim concern. Wesley realized that he had raised his voice, and he forced himself to be calm and present no threat. "I want an explanation," he said quietly to Brian.

"You'll get one," Giles said equally quietly at his shoulder. "But not here. Brian -- "

"My rooms are just across the quad," Brian said, matching Giles's low tone. "We can talk there."

"Good," Giles said, without consulting Wesley, which roused him even further. "Elisabeth -- " her attention snapped to him -- "go find Buffy and bring her to Brian's rooms." Elisabeth slipped away; and as he turned with Robson, Brian, and Giles, Wesley caught sight of her speaking to a woman in a clerical collar, who tipped her head in a leftward direction; Elisabeth grasped her arm in a gesture of thanks and headed off that way. Wheels within wheels, and suddenly Wesley was furious.

"If this is a trap," he said to them in his most arid voice, not caring if others could hear, "you will really regret it."

*

Robson took a seat in one of the leather chairs of Brian's study as if it were his own, as if he were preparing to examine Wesley. Fury kept Wesley on his feet, even as he watched Giles cross the room and find himself a seat nearby. Giles was watching him with circumspection, but his attention was diverted when Elisabeth came into the room with Buffy behind her. Wesley saw Elisabeth take in the scene -- Robson and Giles seated under the windows, Brian standing on the hearth with his arms crossed over his chest, and himself brought to bay -- and with a single wary glance at Wesley cross to sit next to Giles. Buffy closed the door as she came in, but stayed in the doorway.

They were waiting for him to explain himself. The sheer injustice of it made Wesley so angry that he had to force his hands unclosed. "I see some things have changed since I was here last," he said.

"Indeed," Robson said. "In fact, I would dare to say that things have changed _because_ you were here."

"One of them being an alliance between the Council and the Slayers?" Wesley said coolly.

Giles cleared his throat. "A provisional alliance," he said, "for the purposes of defeating the rogue Watchers."

"And you think I'm -- " But Robson interrupted him.

"It appears, however," he said, "that most of the Watchers actively seeking to tamper with the Slayer line are dead outside our efforts."

Wesley smiled bitterly. "I see. So if I'm not a rogue myself, I'm a wanton killer of Watchers. As befits a servant of Wolfram &amp; Hart."

"Exigent circumstances -- "

Wesley laughed, and Robson stopped. "Was it reasonable for me to expect you to trust me?" he said. "In any case, I did not. As far as you were concerned, once I was exiled from my heritage I could hardly be expected to honor it."

"Then you can hardly blame us for making inquiries," Robson said mildly.

"And you can hardly blame me for taking matters into my own hands when you refuse to share the results," Wesley said, containing his anger. His gaze and Robson's locked.

"You ran from the door," Robson said.

"You knew I was dead before _I_ did," Wesley said. "What did you do with my body?"

"We never had your body," Robson said with a sigh. "Our man in L.A. was too late. The entire city was in chaos; the civil authorities were ready to declare martial law; Miss Summers' man there was killed trying to help bystanders to safety, considering it his duty as a priest; and there was no one else who knew to look for you." As he spoke, Wesley was struck with a kaleidoscopic sense of the room, as if reality were presenting itself to him in shards: when Robson mentioned Buffy's priest, Elisabeth took Giles's hand and tightened her mouth. He could feel Brian looking at him as if he would stare a hole in him. He was aware of the rich red of Elisabeth's gown, and the gold of Buffy's hair silver-gilt by the light from the windows, and the dust on the faded rug under his feet, and the books piled in the chair at Brian's flank.

"Then how -- " he began slowly.

"It took us a long time to track you down. And when we got to the morgue where you'd been taken, the body had already been claimed and given burial. We found the grave site, and it appeared to be secure; when you reappeared in England, we checked it, and the grave was erased as if it had never been."

"Who buried me?" Wesley persisted, knowing it was important.

"A young man named Connor Reilly."

For one half a second, Wesley saw the kaleidoscope turn. He saw Elisabeth stifle a sympathetic gesture, saw Giles and Buffy exchange a taut glance, saw Brian take a breath and return his piercing glance from Robson's face to Wesley's. Then the impact rolled through as if from an epicenter of grief behind him: his hand under Satsuki Morimoto's head, Faith's hand on the Scythe under his, and Connor, Connor, Connor showing the last kindness to his body. Wesley dropped his head and covered his brow with a palm, but his grief was as impossible to hide as to stop, and with a long shudder he was weeping openly before another second had passed.

Once he had begun, he couldn't stop: Gillsworth was wrong, kindness was not a heady wine, it was wormwood and gall. He had longed for something to pull away the vague numb ache he had taken with him from the forest: this did not pull but tore, stripped, and scorched him, and he could not flee to the protective arms of madness now: the winds of Malta and the sisters' hands, Gillsworth's acerbic compliments, Dennison's tea, Giles's level gaze. He wept for a long minute, and longer than a minute, until he began to be aware of the others looking on. _Well, they can bloody well wait till I've finished_, he thought.

He took his hand away from his forehead and wiped ineffectually at his mouth and nose. Before he had recovered enough to look up, he heard Robson speak.

"It appears that name means something to you."

Wesley forgot his tears and turned to stare at him in wonder. It was impossible that Robson should still not know who Connor was, or to think that Wesley did not know. He encountered Robson's dry look, and his wonder flipped over into renewed fury. "What do you know of it?" he said, his voice scraping over the tears in his throat. He straightened and gave Robson the full benefit of his fierce glare. "Do you think I followed Angel for the career opportunity?"

Robson looked at him solemnly. "No."

But Wesley had had enough of the inquisition. "I gave up my life and my soul piece by piece," he said, snarling. "And I fulfilled my oath. But since I did so in the company of a vampire, the Watchers' Council can't see the honor in it."

"That's not true," Robson said.

"No?" Wesley said. "Then tell me: how easy was it for Dickinson to traduce me at Wyndam Hall?"

There was a silence. Then Brian cleared his throat, and everyone looked at him.

"I believe I can shed some light on that," he said.

For the first time Wesley allowed himself to look straight into Brian's eyes: they were as warm and yielding as granite -- the gaze of an academic, who would have cold truth at any cost. With the calm of disaster Wesley said: "Tell me."

"As the Watchers had informed us that you had been dead," Brian said, in a slow voice as though sorting facts for a lecture, "so they brought us the news of what happened in Paris. You are correct that Dickinson attempted to traduce you. His claim was that Wolfram &amp; Hart resurrected you for the purpose of aiding them in their attempts to steal the Slayers' power. While none of us were willing to place our faith in the testimony of a known rogue," he said, "the possibility of Wolfram &amp; Hart's involvement was all too likely. And you were missing." This last, Brian said without inflection, but Wesley could sense the indictment under the steadiness of his voice.

"So I was not there to contradict him," Wesley said, to complete the thought.

But Brian shook his head. "We knew you didn't know how you came to be resurrected. So our only move was to find it out ourselves."

"How?"

"The credit card," Brian said. "Willow came to Oxford and conducted an astral walk with the card as a key." His chin went up, as if Brian expected reprisal. As indeed he might.

"And who told you you could meddle in my affairs?" Wesley said coldly.

Brian's granite eyes turned sharp. "You did," he said simply. "When you sent it to me."

After a moment's silence, Wesley said: "And what did you discover?"

"We discovered that Illyria made a bargain with the Powers that you should be returned to life, in exchange for her exile from this dimension. Wolfram &amp; Hart insisted on being a part of the deal, and provided you with the beacon. Had you put your signature to a purchase with the credit card," Brian said, "you would have been bonded to them by eternal contract."

"I see," Wesley said, though he was well aware there was more to that story. "And where is the card now?"

"I destroyed it," Brian said. "And the link to the dimensions it opened onto."

That ought to have been good news. But there was no joy in Brian's face, only a look of grim expectation. Something had put up a block to the affinity between them, and Wesley didn't have a clear view of what it was. He said slowly, "You went on an astral walk to find out who brought me back?"

"And to find you," Brian said. "But in that I was unsuccessful."

Wesley made no move and kept his face still; but inwardly he marveled at the reversal. He had spent all his spare thoughts on Brian's danger from the rogue Watchers; and all that time, Brian had been acting on his behalf. Saving him. Wesley finally gave him a quizzical look and said: "You would play Beatrice to my Dante?"

"You're the one claiming to be a party of one," Brian said.

"I never said that," Wesley said. With his eyes still on Brian he unfastened the snaps on his coat, unclipped the strap from his shoulder, and drew free the Scythe in its cloth case from behind him. "I am not here only on my own errand," he said, and turned to Buffy. "Faith asked me to bring you this."

Buffy came forward a few steps to close the distance and take the Scythe as he offered it, and as she received it their eyes met. The room was silent, watching her unfold the flap of the case. The room brightened when she freed the silver blade; she flourished it lightly, and Wesley was not the only one to draw a breath of relief.

"And thus is accomplished the object of the Soulan Waer," Robson said. Wesley turned to see him smiling wryly at Buffy, as if he had lost a game of chess to her.

"The Soulan Waer?" Wesley said, and Robson turned his wry smile to him.

"It was the way we chose to counter the rogue Watchers' scheme," he said. "With Gillsworth's help we brought together all the Slayers who are still under the protection of Watchers, and laid our oath upon Miss Summers till the Scythe should come back to her hand."

Wesley stared at him disbelievingly. Then looked at Giles. Giles nodded.

A new thought came to Wesley. "Where's Dennison?" he asked.

"Gone to ground," Giles said with a small shrug. "God only knows when he'll surface again. He did, however, leave notes on the Soulan Waer in the teapot. The Council is choosing to take that as an endorsement of their actions." A smile won its way to his face, and Wesley stifled a sudden mordant grin in return.

"So," he said, looking at Robson, "it appears that Bingaman was incorrect in saying that I am more rogue than he and Dickinson."

"So it appears," Robson said carefully. "If, that is, you are willing to pledge your oath to the Soulan Waer yourself."

Wesley gave him a level look. "I will," he said. "If I have the Council's word that Faith will be left alone."

Robson inclined his head. "That is satisfactory."

Wesley turned to Buffy. "And you? Have I given sufficient earnest of my intentions?"

Buffy nodded. "But speaking of Faith, I need to talk to her. Can you help with that?"

Wesley suspected she meant more than giving her Faith's contact information. But he nodded willingly.

That left only one person to deal with. "Well?" Wesley said quietly to Brian, his pulse beating harder. "I could use a scolding and a drink from Lethe just about now."

Brian had not moved from his original position. He stood still on the hearth, his arms crossed high on his chest so that the fronts of his gown swept forward at a curled cant, and he seemed immovable. His gaze flicked sharply over Wesley, down, and up again. "You're not wearing my boots," he observed coolly.

"Forgive me," Wesley said. "I lost them in McGregor's garden."

At last -- at last -- there was a flicker of warmth in the man's eyes, and the sense of the kaleidoscope fell away, leaving a single, breathing whole.

"No bread and milk and blackberries for _you_," was all Brian said, austerely, but it was enough that Wesley ducked his head, trying to conceal a broad grin. When he managed to control it down to a clamped smile, he looked up and found that the terrible strain had gone from Brian's face. The fronts of his gown swayed as he turned swiftly to Robson and Giles. "Is there anything else we need to cover in this meeting?" he said.

"I don't think so," Robson said.

Giles shook his head. Elisabeth gave a small gasp as if she had forgotten to breathe, and gave Brian a bright grin.

"Buffy?" Brian said.

"I'm good," Buffy said, giving him a dry look that Brian ignored. Wesley made a mental note to ask Brian about their history together, when they had leisure.

"Then may I suggest we adjourn?"

"Fine with me," Elisabeth said, getting achingly to her feet. "Maybe I can get back to the reception in time to snatch a chocolate-covered strawberry."

"I apologize," Wesley smiled, "for interrupting your shining moment."

"You didn't," she said. "I'm glad you came."

"So am I," Wesley said honestly. "I enjoyed it very much."

Buffy was resheathing the Scythe. Giles and Robson shook hands, and they both turned to him. "The Council will be in contact," Robson said, brushing his gown straight. "At what address can I reach you?"

"Mine will do," Brian said mildly, and Wesley's heart lifted. Robson gave a short nod to them all and took his leave. As Wesley watched, Giles passed Brian on his way to Buffy with a hand on Brian's shoulder, and Brian returned the touch with a brief, calm gesture.

Elisabeth murmured, "And perhaps you might be successful in convincing Brian to move to a better flat."

"Having me underfoot for any length of time should do the trick," Wesley murmured back, and to his surprise Elisabeth grinned and went up on tiptoe to peck him lightly on the cheek. "Glad you're back," she said. "Try not to scare us again any time soon?"

"I'll do my best," Wesley said.

*

"Well," Wesley said, as Brian locked up his rooms and started back down the corridor beside him with his briefcase swinging. There didn't seem like anything else to say; Buffy and Giles and Elisabeth were already gone, and Brian had sent Elisabeth with his excuses for not rejoining the colloquium reception.

"God!" Brian said. "That was the worst viva voce I've ever been involved with."

Wesley nodded fervently. "At least it's over now."

"Well, not quite." Brian shot him a sideways glare. "I still have a serious bone to pick with you."

"Oh?" Wesley said, nervously.

"Yes," Brian said, his brows very dark. Wesley waited.

Brian said: "You never told me you went to _Cambridge_."

Wesley looked away grinning half in relief. "I suppose it never came up."

"Never came up!" Brian made an incredulous gesture. "Never came up! It's not the sort of thing you just -- casually drop into conversation after half a dozen meetings."

"That's funny," Wesley said, "I thought it was exactly that sort of thing." And added before Brian could expostulate, "Besides, this is our fifth meeting, not our sixth."

"Now you're splitting hairs," Brian said.

"Well, what should I have done? Warned you while we were drinking at the pub?"

"It might have crossed your mind!"

"I didn't realize taking a degree at Cambridge was even more an impediment to your affections than being a Watcher," Wesley said.

"You should have done. This is going to wreak havoc with my reputation," Brian said, and Wesley could hardly contain a laugh. But he could see that Brian needed a safe target upon which to vent his energy, and so he let him continue at full spate without interruption, which lasted all the way across the green quad and to Magdalen gate. Overhead the soft clouds were scudding before a steady wind, between which the brilliant blue of the September sky shone, and the hems of Brian's gown danced.

When they reached the street, Brian turned quickly to him and broke off his philippic mid-sentence. "Are you hungry? I'm starving."

"I could eat," Wesley said, and realized that that was an understatement.

"There's a nice little Lebanese place down the way, if you care about it."

"Sounds good. Lead on."

Holding pace with Brian, without the weight of the Scythe, he felt as if his own gravity had been released to its natural heft. Beside him, Brian strode along easily, the yoke of his gown a light solemnity on his shoulders. Wesley saw clearly now the authority in him, and wondered if it had always been there, or if Brian had changed as much as he.

"How's your paper on Charles of Valois?" he asked.

Brian sighed. "Completely nonexistent. I've been -- well, there was the Colloquium, and preparing for term, and -- well. I'd probably better get hold of Jeffries and tell him he should find someone else for the panel."

It was obvious Brian didn't want to discuss his dimensional travels. "It's still a few weeks before term, isn't it?" Wesley said. "We could go to Florence. Perhaps the scenery would inspire you."

Brian cast him a sidelong look. "Haven't you made Europe a _bit_ too hot to hold you for a while?"

"Well," Wesley said, "yes. There is that."

When they turned in at the Lebanese restaurant and greeted the motherly woman at the counter, Brian became positively expansive. "Congratulate me, Mrs. Darby. The Colloquium is finished!"

"Of course it is, Mr. Whitaker," she said. "And you've come to celebrate."

"Yes, by eating far more than is good for me," Brian said. "May I introduce my friend and associate, Wesley Wyndam-Pryce." He dropped a light hand on Wesley's shoulder, and Wesley, taking up Brian's spirits, grinned.

"Always a pleasure to meet a new customer. Are you eating in or taking it home?"

They looked at one another assessingly. "If we take it home, it'll just get cold," Wesley ventured.

"We'll eat in," Brian said.

Accordingly, a short time later they were digging into an abundance of food, Brian with an unfolded napkin tucked into his collar to protect his gown. They were too busy eating to talk, but Wesley took his opportunity to steal glances at his companion, savoring the pleasure. He had almost forgotten the air of contained ebullience with which Brian moved, the perpetual quizzical arch of his brows, the living warmth of him. Once Brian looked up and caught him staring; the corner of his mobile mouth quirked shyly, and he returned his attention to his plate. Wesley hastened to do the same, blushing warm.

As they were leaving, Wesley said with a sly look: "I'm much obliged to you for the dinner."

Brian pushed open the door with his back. "You owe me a pair of boots," he said, and Wesley rejoiced to see the mischief back in his face.

On the way back to Brian's flat, they talked of inconsequential things, and at times were merely companionably silent; but when they had reached Brian's door, he paused in the act of getting out his keys to glare at Wesley.

"And God knows," he said suddenly, "I can't take you to the Boat Race."

"I don't see why not," Wesley said.

"If you think I'm going to stand next to you -- "

"It would be highly entertaining," Wesley said, at his most deadpan. "And whatever the result, we're virtually guaranteed to have a marvelously antagonistic time in bed that night."

Brian went very still and regarded him with a fixed stare.

"Good heavens," Wesley said, "have I actually rendered Brian Whitaker speechless?"

Brian renewed his glare and unlocked the door with energy. "Not for long," he said.

*

Things had definitely changed. Wesley smelled magic as Brian stepped back to let him in: he glanced about quickly and took in the general state of disarray in the flat, and the cracked top panel of the display case. Wards, he diagnosed: strong ones: necessary ones.

Brian pushed the door shut behind them, moving with a careless delicacy that brought them close without touching. Wesley breathed quicker, but Brian turned away into the flat -- then stopped with a grunt of dismay. "Oh, God," he said. "Please pretend you don't see what a horror zone this flat is."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Wesley said, obligingly. He shrugged out of his leather coat and folded it neatly over the back of the couch. As he watched, Brian moved away, removing his gown with a practiced dip of one shoulder, and hung it with his hood in the wardrobe; Wesley noticed that although Brian didn't seem to give his gown another glance, he had hung it on the only sturdy wooden hanger on the rod, and the fronts had fallen perfectly as he stuck it back in and shut the door.

"I've hardly been here," Brian explained, pulling off his tie with a silken snap. "Between the Colloquium and the Watchers' Council, I've spent all my time in my study or at Pyke's Lea." He levered his shoes off toe to heel and kicked them out of the way.

"Yes," Wesley said, likewise pulling off his boots and setting them next to the couch.

Brian unbuttoned his collar, but paused in the act of pulling up a hidden fine chain round his neck, looking intently at Wesley. After a moment he let the chain fall back into hiding and approached him, his face grave. Wesley longed to touch him, but Brian stopped just out of his reach.

"Could you -- do something for me?" The color rose in Brian's face. "It's terribly stupid, I'm afraid."

"What is it?" Wesley said, apprehensive now.

"And all the more so because we just walked across Oxford in broad daylight. But -- "

Wesley looked at him, waiting.

Brian gestured lamely at the bathroom door. "Could you go with me to look in the mirror? I know it's stupid. It wouldn't do any good if --"

"Of course I will," Wesley said.

Brian followed him to the bathroom; Wesley turned on the light and looked back at him, and he stepped inside so that they were both visible in the mirror over the sink counter. He was looking at Wesley's reflection, so Wesley turned to meet his gaze in the glass -- and was taken aback.

He had had almost no opportunity to use a large enough mirror with a clear view since the last time he'd been in this bathroom: dim washrooms and moving trains and tiny shaving mirrors had conspired with his single-mindedness to obscure what was now flagrantly obvious.

It wasn't just the long hair tucked rakishly behind his ears, or the uneven stubble, or the suggestion of dirt where he had not bothered to wipe his tears away; it was the whole expression of his face and the calm set of his shoulders, completely new to him and peaceful to the point of mystery.

"I'm different," he said softly. "I can't think how. It must be -- I'm not -- "

" -- not Mr. Grimly Stoic?" Brian said, and Wesley snorted. "'Coming up next on BBC One, Mr. Grimly Stoic and his friends solve the mystery of the missing apocalypse in an adaptation of Dunnett's children's classic -- '"

Wesley turned to him, laughing helplessly. "Oh, how I've missed you!" he said, and reached for him.

He would have kissed Brian, but instead he found himself crushed close with Brian's arms awkwardly tight around him, and for a minute they were both very still. After a long pause he felt Brian take a careful breath; and then another.

"I'm sorry," Wesley said, and meant it.

Brian shook his head.

"I am, you know. I could have got a message to you to let you know I was alive, at least."

Brian nodded, and then shook his head: _Yes, you could_, and, _Not my point_.

"As it is," Wesley insisted, "it cost you a great deal to trust me. I can see that."

At this Brian pulled back. "There was no cost to that -- there was -- I cut you off from all the people you -- oh, I do beg your pardon. This is not -- what I meant -- " He wiped uselessly at his face with the heels of his hands. Gently Wesley took his hands away and drew him close again.

"It's all right," Wesley murmured, soothing him so that he began tentatively to relax.

"Then you're not," Brian said hoarsely, "going to leave me for betraying you?"

It was Wesley's turn to pull back startled. "For be -- ? But you didn't betray me. You saved me."

Brian's gaze was cast down to his feet, and his mouth was a grim line. "Not what it felt like."

Wesley didn't have to know the details of what Brian had done to understand that. He said: "Feeling like Judas is part of the job."

Brian looked up, and a smile began to dawn at the corners of his eyes. "You've read Sayers."

"A number of years ago," Wesley said, and added puckishly, "Ignoring the Oxford bits as best I could."

As he had hoped, Brian broke out laughing, and they returned to the embrace, both now breathing easily in each other's arms.

Wesley said: "And you're not going to leave me because I went to Cambridge?"

"No," Brian admitted on a groan. Then Wesley felt the warmth of Brian's breath stealing through the soft hair at his temple. "But you'd damn well better be right about Boat Race night," he said, in a low voice whose effect shot straight to Wesley's loins.

Wesley drew back just enough to meet Brian's eyes at close range. "I feel fairly confident in my theory," he said with a quiet grin. They reached to kiss, in the same moment, in the same act: and it was impossible to know, in what followed, whether the caresses of each drew the response or if the response invited the caress, and linear time measured itself only in mounting desire.

He hadn't dared to let himself think about how much he had wanted this, how much he had wanted both to get claiming hands on Brian's skin, and to drop his center of gravity trustingly into Brian's arms; now that the moment was here, he had bypassed anticipation, and the full flower of that fruition weakened his knees. "Get me to bed," he gasped.

Brian laughed and drew him from the bathroom. "Not a problem," he said. "Bed's right here, and so are we."

"Indeed," Wesley murmured against his collarbone, letting him work free Wesley's cuff button and push his shirt off his shoulders. "You're a bit tidier than I am," he added, and Brian laughed again.

"Also not a problem. I like my men rakish and travel-stained. Though I expect you're not necessarily like that when you're at home." Brian's hands were under the waistband of his trousers, and his next words were punctuated with short, savoring kisses. "But that's of little account. I have a suspicion -- that you taste just as good -- whatever state you're in. In any case -- " he grinned as his fingers found Wesley's trouser buttons -- "I look forward to finding out."

"Whitaker," Wesley said, smiling, "have I mentioned before that you talk entirely too much in bed?"

"Well, a)," Brian said, "we're not _in_ bed yet. And b), I have been informed that most women find it endearing."

"I'm not most women," Wesley said.

That was when Brian's hand found its way into his pants. "Q. E. D.," he said.

Wesley matched his wide grin for a moment. Then he wrapped his arms around Brian and flung them both down into the bed. On the instant there was a loud crack and the bed jumped under them.

Brian struggled to lift his head and look round. "Hell, Pryce!" he said, "I think you've broken a bed slat."

Wesley was unperturbed. "Have I?" he said. "Well, we'll just have to break the rest of them then."

"Ha!" Brian crowed, "the perfect solution!"

And he rolled Wesley over.

*

"No injuries?"

"No injuries."

"_Mirabile dictu_!"

"As you say."

*

"That's an impressive amulet."

"Yes, well, we won't need it just now -- I'll put it here on the nightstand."

"You do trust me. 'Full nakedness! All joys are due to thee.'"

"Oh, no fair trumping my Tennyson with Donne."

"As I recall, it was Shakespeare you quoted me last."

"Was it? How apposite of me. Here: let me show you where to put your holy palm. Oh God...that will work, too."

"You like this?"

"Oh...yes."

*

Afterward they lay together, heads on one pillow, in the damp glow of pleasure in its fullness. Brian had lost track of thoughts for a while; now they came back, both lazy and swift, like the river. My man right fair, he thought, stroking a slow hand over Wesley's arm and then lifting it to bury his fingers in his hair.

In response Wesley opened his eyes and edged himself closer, though as it was they could hardly tell their limbs and bodies apart. "Made it home," he murmured.

"Mm," Brian said. He drew his fingers through Wesley's hair and lifted it to its length, taking his time about it. "You need a haircut," he said.

"Yes." Wesley smiled. "Haven't had one since I came back from the dead," and they both chuckled.

"I've heard one's hair continues to grow in the grave."

"I think it's more that the skin shrinks," Wesley said thoughtfully.

Brian brought his hand back down to bury his fingertips close to the warmth and pulse of Wesley's scalp. "Do you remember...?"

" -- being dead?" Wesley finished. "No. What a pity, isn't it. I could have had an eyewitness report. 'I am Lazarus, come back to tell you all, I am here to tell you all -- '"

"You're just full of poetry today," Brian grinned. "Tell me about McGregor's garden."

"No," Wesley said.

His tone said that he meant it; Brian put back his head, half-indignant. "No?"

Wesley said, "You first."

Ah. Brian shut his eyes on a sigh. "All right. But I need to be perpendicular for this conversation." Suiting the action to the word, he began to extricate himself from their embrace. "And preferably drinking a cup of tea."

"Then by all means let's put the kettle on," Wesley said.

*

Brian reached for the electric kettle and realized he would have to move several of the dirty dishes piled in the sink to fill it. He couldn't stop a small whimper of dismay. Wesley reached past him and started digging out dishes so that he could get the kettle under the tap. "It's a complete disgrace," Brian groaned.

"Hm, what?" Wesley said, as if he hadn't just put his hands into a week's worth of disgusting crockery.

"Very heroic, my dear, and I thank you. But there's no point, really. This flat is so dirty I have no idea when I'm going to get it even halfway cleaned. Every second of my life is spoken for from here to the crack of doom, starting with the committee meeting tomorrow to do the postmortem on the Colloquium."

"If only you had a friend with nothing pressing on his agenda who could help you." Wesley folded his arms and leaned comfortably back against the counter, watching Brian fill the kettle, dock it, and press the lever.

Brian gave him a look. "Starting with washing us some cups?"

God, but the man had a lovely smile. "Certainly," Wesley said.

A short time later they were sitting at Brian's little dining table, freshly cleared of papers and other debris, with their cups of tea. "Now," Wesley said. "No more stalling."

"Fine," Brian said with a gusty sigh, and began. He told Wesley about Robson's offer, and his decision to go to Buffy instead; about the spell and the corridor between the worlds; about the beautiful woman in the office who already knew his name. "I had to ask for hers," he said, "and she gave me a card."

Wesley gave a small affectionate eyeroll. "Lilah. I wondered when she would make her appearance."

"You do know her then," Brian said. "I -- er -- got the impression from her that -- "

Wesley looked up at him from under his brows, a humorous, testing look. "Let's just say I sort of accidentally slept with her more than twice."

"I thought it might be something like that," Brian said, with half a grin. "She proceeded to offer me a devil's bargain."

"Of course she did," Wesley said.

Brian outlined the deal, and, with only a little hesitation, told Wesley how he'd chosen. As Wesley listened, he fixed Brian with a look he couldn't quite read: an assessing half-smile touched either with wonder or the beginnings of anger. Brian pressed on. "So I snapped the card," he said, "and the next thing I knew I was standing on a precipice in a world that had nothing at all in it except -- "

Suddenly Wesley's eyes went wide. "Except for one dead thorn tree," he said.

They stared at each other for a moment. "You've been there," Brian said.

But Wesley shook his head. "I didn't go there. But I saw it -- saw you. I was having my consciousness choked off by a suicide demon at the time." Brian thought, _You'll soon have to take your turn telling stories_, and knew Wesley could read it on his face. Wesley continued, "Then when I got free of the demon I forgot about it. But you were there."

"As a very poor substitute for you," Brian said, and told him about his encounter with Illyria. When he reached the end of that conversation, he waited to see how Wesley would take it.

Wesley ran a hand through his hair and sat back in his chair, staring at his teacup. "It's like Illyria to take some sort of unilateral action like that," he said, after a silence. "And like her to think that Angel got the better deal, swept out of this dimension altogether. The dead don't have any mobility," he said musingly, with a mordant smile.

"Did I do wrong?" Brian asked, unable to stop the question.

Wesley looked at him. "Will I hold it against you, you mean?" he said, gently. "The answer is no."

Brian couldn't speak. He sat, with his hands cupped loosely round his teacup, and waited.

"Even before I knew what you had done," Wesley said, slowly as if explaining it to himself, "I had a choice of my own to make. I had to let them go -- say goodbye to them, within myself -- in order to press on and outflank the rogues. And Angel left Connor behind in the world; and Connor did for me what Angel couldn't. All was fixed that could be fixed," he said. "And you helped."

"Is that the truth?" Brian said.

"I think you'll find," Wesley smiled, "that I can't lie to you very well." He swirled the remaining tea in his cup and took a sip. "About as well as you can lie to me," he added, and Brian gave one snorting note of laughter. "At any rate, that was quite an impressive trip you took."

"Yes, and that was just the morning," Brian said, and told him about the Soulan Waer in the Star Chamber at Wyndam Hall.

"It's called the East Room," Wesley said, "much less picturesquely. And I still can't believe the Council agreed to it."

Brian said, "You were the one who gave Gillsworth that list of Slayers and Watchers. Right?"

"Yes," Wesley said. "In exchange for safe and secret passage to Japan."

Brian nodded.

"So you and Buffy were at Wyndam Hall," Wesley said, that half-wondering quizzical look back on his face. "Was my father there?"

"Oh, yes," Brian said. "I thanked him for his hospitality nicely. And was tempted to add 'Oh, by the way, I've been sleeping with your son.'"

Wesley swallowed a grin. "But you didn't."

He might as well tell Wesley everything. "No. I contented myself with observing to Buffy as he walked away that he looked a little bit like a robot."

For a second Wesley looked as if Brian had smacked him in the face. Then he sputtered into a disbelieving laugh. "My God, you didn't!"

"I did." Brian laughed at Wesley's laughter. "I'd better warn you, I can be a dangerously impulsive and tactless friend to have."

"I'll take my chances." Brian could read the wonder and amusement clearly on Wesley's face now. "So you cut a deal with Lilah, spoke with Illyria in her home dimension, and cheeked my father at Wyndam Hall. Tell me, have I any secrets left from you?"

"That," Brian said, "only you know." But the thought of Wesley's remaining secrets gave him no qualm as it might have done before. And to his relief and delight, Wesley was not recoiling at the exposure. Brian said: "I thought I'd never get you back."

"And I thought I'd never get back to you." Wesley's small smile mirrored his.

"But you did. My God, I wanted to shake you till you rattled. In that leather coat of yours, walking right in like -- You looked -- " like pure sex, he almost said -- "positively feral."

Not that he'd fooled Wesley any. "You liked the coat, did you?" he said, with a provocative glance.

Brian looked over to where Wesley's coat lay over the back of the couch. "I could never pull off something like that."

"Let's see," Wesley said. Brian gave him a long, skeptical look, but Wesley didn't capitulate. With an aggrieved sigh Brian got up and went to lift it from its place.

"Go on, try it on."

Shooting Wesley a glare, Brian shrugged the coat on over his T-shirt and pajama pants. His arms were longer than Wesley's, but the coat fit his shoulders nicely, and though Brian thought the skirts fell awkwardly round his legs, he turned around to see Wesley still at the table with his chin in his hand, openly admiring him. He felt his face warming.

"Very nice," Wesley said.

"You think so?" Brian said dryly. He smoothed his hands down the fronts of the coat, fiddling with the snaps, and felt a heavy lump in an inner pocket. He reached in curiously and drew out a monstrous sleek gun; and almost dropped it. "Good heavens! Is this thing loaded?"

Wesley got up and came over to him. "It's all right, the safety's on. See?"

Brian had no idea which part of the gun was the safety. He was relieved when Wesley took it out of his hands, and as he watched Wesley eject the clip with a practiced motion, he felt equally disturbed and aroused.

Wesley put the gun down on the coffee table. Even disassembled, it gleamed at Brian with black malevolence. "Does it make you nervous?" Wesley said.

"It does, a little," Brian admitted. He looked up to meet Wesley's eye. "I suppose one gets used to it."

"Yes," Wesley sighed, "one does."

Brian nodded half to himself. "This is my life now," he said. "I can't regret the choice. Still," he said, shrugging out of the coat and folding it over his arm to give to Wesley, "I think I'll leave the leather-coat wearing to you."

"And deprive me of the pleasure of seeing you in it?" Wesley said indignantly; but he took the coat and laid it almost carelessly over the gun on the table: a small gesture, but its kindness, instead of scalding Brian, eased him.

Brian laid his forearms on Wesley's shoulders, rucking the front of his robe which Wesley was wearing. "But those boots you're going to buy me?" he said. "Will be superlatively badass."

Wesley's arms came to rest comfortably around his waist. "And you're not going to share them, are you?"

"Ohh no," Brian grinned, and drew him in.

They stood embraced for a long moment. Then Wesley said, with his chin on Brian's shoulder: "Would it be courting disaster to say that I love you?"

"Oh sweet disaster!" Brian murmured, and they both chuckled. "My friend, you may do as you please."

Wesley went still for a moment as if savoring the fact. Then he pulled back to look at him. "As I please?" he repeated softly, and his hands behind Brian slid lower. "Tell me, is that as wide an invitation as it sounds?"

Brian shifted foot by dragging foot to close the distance between them completely. "Dunno," he said. "How wide d'you want it?"

"As wide as it'll go." His voice, and his hands closing in a firm grip, drew from Brian a small growl of pleasure. Brian kissed Wesley's mouth, without haste; and they took their time working their way back to arousal.

Some time later Wesley broke the kiss to murmur, "Back to bed with us?"

"Mm," Brian answered. "For the night, I think."

"Yes." Wesley went with him, stealing kisses every so often, as he locked up the flat and went round turning out lights. Together they straightened out the bedclothes and got in. "You may as well leave the robe behind," Brian said. Wesley shot him a glance as feral as any Brian had seen, and complied.

"Your turn," he said, once they were both in the bed. "Now what poetry shall we bring?" and his hands were nimble to skin off Brian's T-shirt.

"Delight in Disorder?" Brian said, thinking of his flat as his shirt sailed to the floor, and Wesley laughed.

"I'll show you disorder," he said.

A long, breathless kiss later Brian said: "I have a theory about you."

"Oh?" Wesley had got him naked now and was straddling him firmly between his thighs.

"I think...you don't actually mind my talking in bed." Brian reached to anchor them together. "In fact...I think you like to make a little conversation yourself."

"And how exactly," Wesley said, "do you arrive at that conclusion?"

"Well, for one thing -- " Brian allowed his hands free license, and Wesley gave a long shudder -- "you haven't made much effort to shut me up."

"Would mere effort suffice?" Wesley chuckled.

"If you know what you're doing. And you do."

"Do I?" Leaving his weight on one hand, Wesley reached down. "Do I?"

Brian arched and shut his eyes. "Yes," he breathed, "you do."

"And what else?" Wesley said softly.

"I...forget what else," Brian said. "Tell you later."

*

But later, Brian lay draped drowsily over Wesley's chest, his only communication the occasional stroking movement of his hand in Wesley's outflung palm.

They breathed quietly together for a long time; and then Brian's head stirred under his hand. "How long can you stay?" he murmured.

"As long as you'll have me," Wesley said.

"Good. Did you mean it about helping me clean?"

"Did you mean it about having meetings tomorrow?" Wesley heard the wistfulness clear in his own voice, and Brian chuckled sleepily.

"Oh that it were not so. I think I'd better put in the appearance, since I skived off the reception today."

"I'm sorry I didn't gate-crash more gracefully," Wesley said.

"Ha," Brian said. "I wasn't kidding about my reputation, you know. But I'm way past recognizing that lost cause."

"I shouldn't worry." Wesley stroked his fingers through Brian's damp tousled hair. "Oxford and Cambridge are very forgiving institutions. They've been putting up with Watchers for hundreds of years."

"Mm," Brian said.

"Do you want to hear about McGregor's garden now?" Wesley said.

"Please," Brian said.

"Very well." Wesley stroked him, gathering his thoughts. "Let's see. I think you know by now that I went to Reims and fell foul of Dickinson there. They took me to Paris and locked me up till I should cooperate with them. I made the mistake of not sending you your card back, and I was afraid they would get to you. But you got the better of them after all. It's been so long since I had a partner, I forgot what it was like....Brian?" He stopped and listened to Brian's even breathing. "Brian?"

But Brian was firmly and deeply asleep.

"And no wonder," Wesley said quietly. "It's been rather a long day."

He reached up to the nightstand and turned out the light.

*

_finis_


	9. Epilogue: Radcliffe

“You do realize,” Wesley said, “that our level of speed will make no difference whatever to the end result?”

“I’m aware of it,” Brian said testily. He slackened his foot on the accelerator, but his spirits and the needle crept up again quickly. Minutes later they swerved into the drive of the vicarage with a lurch, and Brian, grinning, beat a sharp, deafening tattoo on the horn with both fists: _Shave and a haircut, six bits_.

“Or,” Wesley said with the same mildness, “we could go up to the door and knock politely.”

“Now where would be the fun in that?” Brian said, just as the vicar emerged, pulling on her windbreaker and casting a dry smile at them in the front seat. She crossed the headlight beams at a quick but sedate pace and got in behind Brian.

“All right?” Brian said.

“Yes, I’m ready,” Anne said. “And this must be....”

“Oh, right, you haven’t met. The Reverend Anne Langland -- Wesley Wyndam-Pryce.”

“Ah yes,” Anne said, as Wesley reached a hand back to shake hers. “You must come from Wyndam Hall then.”

“You know it?” Wesley said, surprised.

“I haven’t been there, but my cousin stayed there a number of years to study with Peter Gates.”

“Yes, he was my tutor as well. Who was your -- I suggest putting on your seat belt -- your cousin?”

“Richard Farrar.”

“Oh! You are related to the Farrars?”

The rest of the trip to the hospital was spent in comparing genealogical notes, with the result that Brian was muttering under his breath when they arrived in the maternal ward. At once, Anne was given passage back to the birthing rooms, and Wesley and Brian were shooed off to sit down in the waiting area.

“I wondered why she put her collar on for this!” Brian said indignantly. “That is entirely unfair.”

“Do you really want to be back there?” Wesley said. “Trust me, it’s better to be present for a labor at a certain distance.”

Brian harrumphed, but subsided into one of the chairs without any more argument.

They waited. Wesley took up a magazine and divided his attention between it and the other people in the waiting area; Brian also picked up a magazine, but after only a few minutes tossed it back to the table and drummed his fingers on the chair arm between them. There was no use telling him to calm down, so instead Wesley allowed himself to be absorbed into an article about Aztec ruins.

Presently Brian emitted a quiet little giggle. Wesley was going to ask him what was up, after he finished this paragraph, but then Brian did it again: an almost gurgling chortle that sounded strangely unbalanced. Wesley looked up. Brian was hugging himself, bubbling with ever more unbalanced laughter. “You’ve lost it, old man,” was on the tip of Wesley’s tongue to say, but then Brian rolled in his chair and broke out in a peal so truly wicked that the words were arrested in Wesley’s throat.

It didn’t stop there. Brian gripped the arms of his chair, and the mad peals of wicked laughter mounted so that the others in the waiting area stopped their conversations to look at them. Wesley resisted the impulse to hide behind his magazine. “Brian,” he said, but it was too late.

He had to admit it was impressive: just when he thought the maniacal laughter had to have reached its peak, Brian’s lung capacity boosted it to new heights. It was creating a disturbance in the waiting room and beyond. Wesley put his face in his hand and watched between his fingers as Brian lay back rigid and let it rip to full screams, his face growing red under the strain. Wesley was pretty sure they could hear it all over the hospital by now. Every mad scientist in the county was probably running for the hills.

Brian’s screams of wicked glee rose up and up in pitch -- and then abruptly switched off. Brian sat up and reached for a magazine, clearing his throat delicately with the utter decorum of a history don. Wesley took his hand away from his face and watched openly as Brian shook open his magazine, the color subsiding from his cheeks, and settled back to read. The silence in the room was complete.

“I did ask for it, didn’t I?” Wesley said calmly.

“Indeed you did,” Brian said. He was only a little hoarse.

The reverberations from Brian’s maniacal laugh were just beginning to settle when a furious woman in scrubs came out with a bang of the door. “Right,” she said, “which one of you is Brian Whitaker?”

Slowly Brian raised his hand, glee and guilt warring in his face.

“You,” she said, and the glee fled from Brian’s expression. “Elisabeth Bowen sent me with a message for you: ‘You bastard, you’ve put me off my stroke. I’ll have to start all over pushing again.’”

“Oh dear,” Brian said. Wesley dry-washed his face to avoid a smile. “Tell her I’m exceedingly sorry.”

The nurse was unappeased by Brian’s contrite tone and academic diction. “Are you not aware that this is a maternity ward? Do you realize what sort of medical emergencies you could have provoked?”

“I’m really very sorry,” Brian said, this time truly contrite. “It won’t happen again.”

“I thought she was going to throw us out on our ears,” Wesley said quietly after the nurse had gone. A woman sitting across the area from them was still shooting poisonous looks their way, and her children were whispering and giggling.

“It was touch and go,” Brian agreed. And added cheerfully, “It’s no fun if you don’t get in trouble.”

*

A long time later the door opened and Anne came out, tucking a sanitary gown over her arm. Brian half rose, and Wesley put down the sudoku puzzle he was working. “Well,” she said, “it’s a boy, just as they thought. Mother and child are fine.”

“But,” Brian said, confused, “we didn’t even hear him crying.”

“No? Well, he was; quite lustily. I expect he’ll have to grow a little to match your lung capacity.” She smiled at Brian, and he flushed.

“Will we get to see him?” Wesley asked, but before Anne could reply, Rupert came in behind her with a wide smile on his face such as Brian had never seen. He was still wearing his sanitary gown, so it was difficult to distinguish the wrapped morsel of humanity in his arms; Brian shot to his feet, but waited as if balanced on a fine point of gravity for Rupert to invite him closer with a glance before he approached.

With Wesley at his shoulder he looked at the tiny bundle in Rupert’s arms. The baby’s face, folded round in the receiving blanket, was no bigger than Brian’s palm, and his eyes were buttoned tight shut. He was ruddy-skinned and pocket-cheeked -- slightly misshapen, Brian thought, which naturally one would be after passing face-first through a tight space. And below the valence of these thoughts stirred something powerful, something evoked by the scent of blanket and baby skin, by the tiny dark eyelashes, by Rupert’s broad and wet-eyed smile.

“What will you call him?” Wesley asked. He sounded calm, as he had so maddeningly been all evening, but Brian could hear the note of wistful pleasure in his voice.

Rupert gave a small laugh, a sound that also was new. “Elisabeth insisted that we call him after me; but I convinced her he should have her surname as well.”

“Ye gods, not another double-barreled surname,” Wesley said, and he and Rupert both laughed.

“I think we’ll call him by his second name,” Rupert said, “Andrew.”

“Andrew Wells will think you’ve named the baby for him,” Brian said, with a small snort.

“Well, let him,” Rupert said. “It won’t hurt anything.”

Brian hadn’t taken his eyes off the baby, but now Rupert said, “I’d better take him back to his mother now,” and Brian reached into his jacket pocket for his digital camera.

“Wait, we need a picture first. Anne -- will you -- ?”

They posed -- Brian and Wesley on either side of Rupert and his son -- and Anne obligingly took a couple photos, and allowed Brian to take one of her. “Let me see them,” Wesley said; Brian handed over the camera and let him and Anne look the shots over. “Oh, this one is perfect,” she said, and Wesley agreed. “That one will travel round the world before the night is out,” he said.

Rupert looked at them conferring, heads together, over the camera, and murmured to Brian, “Wesley and Anne seem to have hit it off.”

“Are you kidding?” Brian muttered back. “They’re like second double cousins once removed or something,” and Rupert laughed again.

“Congratulations,” Brian said.

“Thank you,” Rupert said, with his gaze bent on his child’s face. “I’d better get back.”

“Yes,” Brian answered, “and I’d better collect my blue-eyed boy and be off home.”

“Yes, term starts tomorrow, doesn’t it?”

“Indeed it does,” Brian sighed. “Otherwise I’d be marching you down to the pub and getting us all smashed. Consider it done in spirit.”

“I will.” Rupert grinned at him. “Good night.”

Brian watched him go, and stood there even after he was gone, till Wesley’s hand on his shoulder recalled him to the present moment. “Shall we go home?” Wesley said quietly.

Brian nodded.

*

Buffy called Brian twice on the way back home. The first time, she demanded details: height, weight, name -- “Giles was completely incoherent” -- and Brian had to give the phone to Anne so he could drive. The second time, after they’d dropped Anne back at the vicarage, Brian let Wesley answer.

“Yes, we have a couple of pictures. Yes, I’ll upload them right away. No, we didn’t get to see Elisabeth -- but I think Giles took some pictures with his own camera, so perhaps -- yes. Yes, I will.”

Back at the flat, Wesley commandeered Brian’s laptop so that he could upload the pictures for Buffy. Brian didn’t object, as there was no way he could tie down his thoughts to the opening of term anyway. He hung over Wesley’s shoulder and watched the pictures come up on the screen.

It was obvious which one Wesley had picked out as the photo that would go round the world: there they stood, three men grouped around the little bundle of baby, Brian’s hand on Rupert’s far shoulder and Wesley’s bright and upright stance; and Rupert’s face, unashamedly radiant, looking straight into the camera’s eye. Brian was still looking at it when his mobile rang a third time.

“Oh my _God_,” Buffy said.

“I know,” Brian laughed.

“Oh my God! I’ll talk to you later, okay? I _have_ to call Will.”

As Brian put down his phone, Wesley handed him a small glass of scotch. “It may not be advisable to get fully inebriated in the traditional fashion, but we can’t not have a toast,” he said.

Brian agreed. “To the Bowen-Giles family,” he said, lifting the glass.

“Hear, hear.” And they put the scotch straight down.

It was after he’d washed the glasses and was drying his hands that his hilarity tumbled hard and the power that had stirred in him as he looked at the baby’s face now gathered heavy in his throat. He swallowed it down and went to lock up for the night; but it wouldn’t swallow, and a minute later Wesley came out of the bathroom to find him sobbing helplessly against the end of the bookcase wall. Brian waited for Wesley to take him and try to soothe him out of it: but Wesley merely stood next to him and waited for the paroxysm to pass.

Presently Brian drew a long, hitching breath and straightened up to wipe his face. He met Wesley’s rueful smile, and searched for something to say to him.

Before he could find it, Wesley said: “No apologies. No explanations,” and Brian laughed as helplessly as he had wept.

“Thank you,” he said.

“Shall I accompany you to the opening of term tomorrow?” Wesley said, as Brian plied his handkerchief and folded it away.

“I would be delighted if you did.”

“Good. I’ll drive,” Wesley said, and Brian gave him a backhanded whap against the chest. Wesley grinned.

“Come to bed,” Brian said.

“Thought you’d never ask.”

They were falling asleep when Brian thought of what to say. He murmured into the darkness: “There’s nothing we really leave behind.”

“No,” Wesley murmured back. “But it’s all right.”

**Author's Note:**

> Special AO3 note: This story is part of a longtime series linked from [my LiveJournal](http://penwiper26.livejournal.com/), starting with the story "Shadow Though it Be" and continuing through "Home Repairs." It is possible to read this story without reading the others, though the others explain the backstory of the original characters in this fic.
> 
> _My lines and life are free_ \-- a line from George Herbert's [The Collar](http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/herbert/collar.htm), which recurs a number of times in the chapter.
> 
> _Must I then give back what I never stole?_ \-- From [Psalm 69](http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+69&version=NIV), though the actual line is from the BCP translation.
> 
> _as the children's story had it_ \-- the children's story being _Prince Caspian_.
> 
> _Take me to Blythgate_ \-- I made the street name up, using advice from A.J. Hall some years ago now; but bomb damage in Manchester has changed its map in our world and I hastened to take advantage of the historical opportunity. It is also faintly a tribute to the equally nonexistent Massingbird Lane in the Manchester of _Have His Carcase_.
> 
> _Banning Edwards_ \-- After the name occurred to me I thought it funny that a man named "Banning" deals in books. He is, of course, the "Mr Edwards" referred to by Elisabeth several times in the course of the Shadowverse stories.
> 
> _book on Rasputin_ \-- Rasputin who is of course a vampire in this 'verse. Dear Buffy.
> 
> _Mr Blake_ \-- Wesley has a few affinities with William Blake, not least of which that he is mad north-northwest and a couple other directions as well.
> 
> _the Russian form of Dennison's name_ \-- This whole sequence started as a throwaway line playing on Alexis Denisof's name, but promptly took on a life of its own. Dennison is not at all like AD, though he is a bit like Wesley, as we shall see.
> 
> _"Why can't people stay dead in this day and age?"_ \-- A question I often ask myself while dealing with the Jossverse.
> 
> _"Maga," he corrected himself_ \-- A clear reference to Willow, which is not lost on Wesley, though Willow's probably the last person who would hare off in search of the Christ child.


End file.
